A Gentleman Called (The Mrs. Norris Mysteries Book 2)

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

“We should not have this grab-bag of my adventures and misadventures if it weren’t for the dotage of my sisters. But we do have it. So we may as well use it if it turns me out a gentleman.” He opened the portfolio and took a neat scrap book of clippings from it. “How would you like to have had your life catalogued from mewl to middle-age by three doting sisters?”

  “It would drive me to a double life,” Jimmie said, hoping to start a gleam of appreciation in Adkins’ eye.

  He did not even look up. “Is there anyone in this world who lives but a single life?”

  “Let’s see what you’ve got here,” Jimmie said, and pulled up two chairs to the large library table.

  Teddy opened the book. The caption on the first piece of yellowed newspaper read: Sit Down Strikers in Brooklyn Encouraged by Socialite.

  Adkins ran a long delicate finger along the words and then pointed to the picture of a man, his back to the camera, his fist in the air, apparently addressing a windowful of factory workers.

  “That is I,” he said proudly.

  “What?” said Jimmie.

  “Oh, yes. My sympathies have always been with the people outside. Certainly you did not think me at home in the bosom of my family?”

  Jimmie took a long pull at his drink. “It did occur to me to wonder what you would do with that menage when you came into your inheritance.”

  “I shall put a match to the house in the dead of night, set up an alarum, and watch them run out in their nightclothes. It will be interesting to see how they go about living when there is nothing left for them to eat but one another.”

  He said it with such calmness, detachment, that a shiver ran through Jimmie, his reaction compounded of both horror and delight. He turned to another page of the album. The clipping there was of a May Day parade in New York City, headed: The Commies’ Thinning Ranks.

  “There I am,” Teddy said. “Bold and balder.”

  “This is great,” Jimmie said. He was going into court to defend a Red in a paternity suit. “A Communist’s word is not gospel to most Americans, you know, and their behavior in court hasn’t endeared them to judge or jury.”

  “But my dear boy, I am not a Communist. I loathe them. That’s why I’m there. They should not have a monopoly on the defense of men’s rights. And I certainly didn’t want to surrender the first of May to them. Though why I should cherish it, I don’t know. One of the most dreadful of my childhood recollections is of prancing around a maypole with my shoes full of gravel.”

  Jimmie scratched his head. “I suppose there’s a sort of logic to your reasoning. I’m not sure Mr. Wiggam is going to see it.”

  “My dear Jarvis, if my mother saw it, Wiggam will see it. He will have to.”

  “Quite true,” said Jimmie. On the whole he was not displeased with this new picture of little Teddy Adkins which was emerging. He was showing up to be a man of good will, however dubious seemed his wisdom…or was he merely an exhibitionist? “Wouldn’t you like to leave the album with me for a day or two? I won’t use any information without your consent.”

  “I doubt I shall be more uncomfortable at your using it than at your culling it.” Adkins wiped the perspiration from his hands on a handkerchief. “It is rather embarrassing, you know.”

  Jimmie grinned. “You must think of me as you would a psychiatrist, Mr. Adkins.”

  “Do you know, I’ve often thought I’d go to one, but I’m afraid it would spoil the fun I get out of life.” Adkins finished his sherry. “I don’t like to leave that about really,” he said, referring again to the scrap book.

  “I’ll go over it right away,” Jimmie said, and took him to the door himself.

  Finally, just before the door closed on him, Adkins said: “Don’t leave it where your housekeeper will find it, will you?”

  “I’ll lock it up,” said Jimmie, “although I’d leave my own diary with Mrs. Norris.”

  “But you lead such an exemplary life,” Mr. Adkins said. He flashed his transitory smile and departed.

  What the hell does he know about my exemplary life, Jimmie thought, returning to his study. It was particularly irksome to have heard the man say it because it was all too true. He poured a drink and took it to Mrs. Norris’ sitting room off the kitchen. She would not help herself to one unless she was about to go into a faint.

  She looked up from the afternoon paper. “Ah, Mister Jamie, thank you. He’s gone, is he?”

  “For the present. I don’t very much like his habit of popping in. I hope it doesn’t annoy you.”

  “If it took no more than that to annoy me, you could put me out to pasture. I find him a congenial man.” She saw that Jimmie was reading her paper. “You may have it if you like, sir.”

  “Excuse me,” Jimmie said, and stated what he had come in about: “Could you give me something to eat on a cracker? Where I’m going tonight we won’t sit down to dinner till nine.”

  “There’s not one word about Mr. Tully’s case in the whole paper. It’s all about those dreadful boys going around in gangs…”

  Jimmie eased himself out of a discussion of them, and realized even as he was doing it that too many people in New York were doing the same thing.

  In his study again, he was about to put Adkins’ scrap book away for the night when another item in it attracted his attention. It was from a morning New York paper of a year and a half before: Minister Exonerated in Murder of Girl.

  Jimmie but vaguely remembered the affair as he read the lead paragraph. The case had been dismissed. He had been in Washington, himself, but if nothing else came back to him about the trial, the name of the victim did: Ellie True. He had thought then, as likely did anyone who could carry a tune, that someone should write a ballad on The Murder of Ellie True.

  Jimmie put down the album, deliberately stopping his eyes from racing through the article. He was in the habit of plucking meat and marrow from the newspaper, leaving the bones to be picked by those who read nothing else. But he had one of those rare premonitions of something in this for the connoisseur. He mixed himself another drink and took it to the window to mull with his speculation. The sky beyond the flickering mountains of buildings to the south of the park was a deep blue flecked with stars high up, but pearly at the buildings’ rim. Clear, exquisitely clear, as the lives of men most certainly were not, Jimmie mused paraphrasing a poem which was not exquisitely clear to him either.

  What in the murder of Ellie True had interested Teddy Adkins? Whatever it was that had led to the dismissal of charges against the man accused of her murder, he speculated. He returned to the piece. He had been quite right:

  “The break came in the twelfth day of the dramatic trial of the Reverend Alfonzo Blake. Defense Counsel Elmo Mumford introduced the witness who corroborated Dr. Blake’s alibi for the night of the murder. Defense counsel then motioned for the dismissal of the trial. Judge Wilkins adjourned court for ten minutes. Returning from his chambers, he dismissed the charges and discharged the jury.

  “The real drama of the case developed quietly in the search by wealthy socialite Theodore E. Adkins for the ‘so-called’ missing witness. Adkins became interested in the case when convinced by newspaper accounts that Dr. Blake was telling the truth. Reached at his Connecticut home, Mr. Adkins said: ‘I am deeply gratified. I am sure Dr. Blake has many years of provident ministry before him.’”

  Provident ministry, Jimmie thought: the peculiar combination of words was characteristic of Teddy Adkins. He made a note to himself. He knew the attorney, Elmo Mumford, a noted trial lawyer, and he intended to see him at the first opportunity.

  13

  MRS. NORRIS HAD FOUND nothing in the newspaper about Arabella Sperling’s murder, because nothing new had been turned up, nothing at least that Jasper Tully was willing to give the newspapers.

  The Medical Examiner’s report was filed. It showed that nothing out of the ordinary was likely to have occurred to Mrs. Sperling the day of her death, nothing strange in the way of food or drink, or physical acti
vity. If she had gone to bed with a gentleman that night—and by the evidence obtained so far it was thoroughly improper to suggest it—it had been in the strictly literal sense, to sleep at his side.

  Only Oscar Johanson dared suggest the existence of such a man. And he had had reason to hope profoundly that one existed. No one except Jasper Tully believed him. But miraculously for both of them, his innocence was attested by the report of the Medical Examiner: two lovely tapering thumbs, almost feminine—and perhaps they were—in their delicacy, had stopped the flow of breath through Mrs. Sperling’s throat.

  Johanson held up his thumbs on Lieutenant Greer’s command.

  “As dainty as barnacles,” Greer said in deep disgust. “Get the hell out of here and you don’t have to come back.”

  “That only means you’re no longer his number one suspect,” Tully said, walking out of the interview room with him. “We may need you one of these days to do some identifying. So don’t go far from home.” He waited until the man was a few steps on his way, a new man, and then called: “Johanson…I wonder if you’d mind giving me a description again of the man you saw leaving her house that morning? It won’t take long.”

  “Sure,” Johanson said.

  Afterwards Tully made up his more mundane description from Johanson’s reaccounting of what his Jim-dandy walking doll looked like. It read:

  Height: not more than 5’ 8”, probably 5’ 6”

  Weight: 160-170

  Build: stocky

  Complexion: Ruddy. “Like well-fed Englishman”

  Hair: Uncertain. Blond probably. (possibly bald.)

  Mustache: English type. Blond, curly (Edwardian?)

  Glasses: Dark-rimmed. (which he took off to better see Sperling in window. Probably frequent gesture as common to people who see distances better without glasses)

  Clothes: Light gray hat, gray (herringbone?) topcoat. Dark suit. Carried black umbrella rolled up. (Brief case?)

  Peculiarities: Manner of walking, back on heels. Vital, lively step. (Of man of well being?) Very neat in appearance.

  Tully drove Johanson home himself. He went then to the funeral parlor from which Mrs. Sperling had been buried and picked up the names of those who had called to pay condolences and had signed “the book of sympathy.” There was not such a number of them and Tully resolved to see each of them himself. He might then come out with a picture of the victim.

  He expected to see a fairly complete roster of the deceased’s friends. Very few people made such calls without leaving a mark to show they had been there, even if a scented book of sympathy turned their stomachs. Within a couple of hours the witnesses began to appear at the District Attorney’s office in response to Tully’s calls.

  The first man he saw was Jefferson Tope, the minister who had given the message of departure, to put it in his words.

  “She was not always what I should call a church woman,” the Reverend Tope said. His parish church was on Lexington Avenue, a few blocks south of where Mrs. Sperling had lived. “But I’ve been wondering if there was not a kind of pattern in her attendance. For example, she had not been to church since August eleventh. I looked it up in her contribution record. A fairly generous woman. I mentioned that to the nieces at the funeral, by the way. They seemed to disagree, but then I should scarcely credit their views in such matters.”

  Tully could guess why: it would have fallen to the nieces to contribute to his ministry after the funeral. No doubt it was a meager benefice, and likely squabbled over in his presence. “Mrs. Sperling’s church attendance,” the detective said. “How long had she been going regular before September?”

  “Very nearly a year. But there’s the pattern part…some time in her rather spotty attendance before last year, she came to me and asked me what I would think of her marrying a divorced man. She was not really a very attractive woman, Mr. Tully, if I may be pardoned for speaking frankly of the dead. I mentioned that she was generous. I must temper that now to say that my own impression of her generosity was that she intended to buy something with every cent she gave, and I wonder now if she didn’t buy…friendship.”

  Tully could not help but observe the cleric’s thumbs. He supposed that until this case was closed he would examine the thumbs of every human being he encountered. The Reverend’s ran to curls. They resembled two question marks.

  “What about the divorced man?” the detective asked.

  “Well, you see, my first question to her was: does he have a family to support? ‘He does,’ she said. ‘I would help him.’ But I don’t think anything came of their romance. Very soon she was back at church as regular as Sunday.”

  “Did she mentioned the name of the man?”

  “No. I suggested that she bring him to see me. She promised that she would. Naturally I didn’t mention it when she didn’t.”

  “I’m not sure I see the pattern,” Tully said.

  “Mrs. Sperling’s whole attendance has been a series of devout periods and lax periods.”

  “Do you think she came in to pray for a husband between prospects, Mr. Tope?”

  “I shouldn’t be that precise about it,” the minister said, “but I do think she returned to God in periods of loneliness.”

  “Most of us do if we’re going to turn at all,” Tully said.

  One thing that had come from the Reverend Tope’s testimony, he thought when the man was gone, was that the picture the two nieces tried to give of their aunt—her being a woman who would not have a man cross her threshold—was entirely inaccurate.

  Another payer of last respects to Mrs. Sperling turned out to be a representative of her bank, an honest mourner no doubt, Tully thought. Appropriately, it was the lad through whom she had made her last withdrawal. Tully asked if she had seemed nervous, taking out so large a sum of money.

  “I told Lieutenant Greer she seemed nervous, sir, but the more I think of it, it wasn’t a worried kind of nervousness. I mean—well, she giggled once or twice.”

  Somehow Tully would never have thought Arabella Sperling to have giggled in her whole life. “But she didn’t make any excuses, any explanation for wanting five thousand dollars in small bills?”

  “Oh, yes she did, sir. I went to the cashier for an okay when she wanted that much money, you see. We should have more notice. And she told him in my presence it was for a real estate investment. He looked at her in a way—I suppose you’d call it questioning. After all, in small bills. And she said, ‘My broker recommends it,’ and then gave that silly smile of hers you had to be watching to see. The cashier made her say it over again: ‘Your broker, Mrs. Sperling?’ ‘MY broker.’ And when she said it that way, that was that.”

  Tully thanked him and thought about his information. It contradicted Johanson’s, though the building superintendent might not necessarily be lying about it. The bank teller quoted Mrs. Sperling as saying her “broker” recommended the cash real estate deal, whereas Johanson quoted her as saying her “broker” had turned it down. The one thing the detective was quite sure about now, Johanson did not get the money; the murderer did. If he had engineered the withdrawal of five thousand dollars, it proved premeditation: murder without passion. And everything about the house, its neatness, confirmed that.

  Another signer of the sympathy book arrived, and another…several who contributed nothing to the investigation.

  Then came George Allan Masters, a man visibly uneasy at the prospect of an interview with the District Attorney’s representative. He gave his age as fifty-one, his occupation, shoe salesman. In response to the routine question on his marital status, he said with hesitancy, “Ah—married.”

  Tully thought he knew who he was. “Recently, Mr. Masters?”

  “Yes, sir. My second marriage, that is.”

  “Widowed or divorced?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Children?”

  “Three—by my first marriage. The oldest is sixteen.”

  “Between the hours of six and midnight of Friday, Nov
ember 17, where were you?”

  “Last Friday,” the man said slowly, and then hastily: “That isn’t difficult: I was in the store, except between six and seven, when I went out with my boss for supper. We took inventory that night. Finished up about two in the morning.”

  Tully was glad to get that one out of the way himself. “Thank you.”

  “Is that the time Arabella was killed?”

  “Sometime before midnight,” Tully said. “At one time you and Mrs. Sperling were considering marriage, weren’t you?”

  Masters looked startled but not frightened. “I didn’t know anyone knew that except Arabella herself. Yes, sir, we were.”

  “What happened to it, your plan?”

  “Well, I was a good deal fonder of my present wife. To tell you the God’s truth, sir, I wasn’t fond of Arabella at all, and in the end I couldn’t be a hypocrite.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Arabella offered to help out with the children—in a financial way—if I married her. It was tempting. I don’t make enough money to support two households. I didn’t want to come here today in case you’d speak to my boss and jeopardize my job…”

  “I’m always careful not to get anybody into trouble who doesn’t deserve it,” Tully said. “I want to know about Mrs. Sperling, and you can tell me more than most people. You knew her well enough to talk about marriage…”

  “She saw to that and often enough,” the man interjected.

  “And yet you weren’t very fond of her. Didn’t you like her even at first?”

  “Oh, yes. She could be nice. And she seemed awfully generous. But I’ll try to tell you how it got to be: well, the only way I can say it—when she’d give you something, she’d snatch it back, and maybe your arm, too. She had that awful way of getting hold of you. Not with her hands. It was just her way, her personality.”

  Tully thought he understood. The same picture had come through from the Reverend Tope. It was an ungentle irony that someone had in the end got hold of Arabella—by the throat. This lad had thumbs like clothes pins, and fingernails he might use for shoehorns. He could not have grown them since the murder, and such nails would have marked the skin of the victim.