Death by Association

by Frances Lockridge

  “Look,” Mary said, “are the police looking for her?”

  “Now Miss Wister,” Heimrich said. “Of course.” He opened his eyes. “You worry too much,” he said. He paused. “Or,” he said, “too soon.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Mary said. “You’re very calm about it, captain. Very—unconcerned.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I don’t deny Miss Jones may be in danger or, may get into danger. I don’t think she’s been harmed as yet. I think she’s hiding—and that she sent you this message.”

  “You think,” Mary said. She repeated it. “You don’t know.” But then she looked with greater intensity at the relaxed policeman from New York. “Or,” she asked, “do you know?”

  “Now Miss Wister,” Heimrich said. “No more than you do, or the doctor here. Or—not much more. Nothing you couldn’t find out, or guess at.”

  “Why would she hide?” MacDonald asked, and spoke slowly. “Because she’s really frightened? Or to—what? Support the story she told Mary? Call attention to it. In a sense, act it out?”

  “Now doctor,” Heimrich said. “Suppose her story is true. Or she believes it is. Then she could have both reasons, couldn’t she?” He closed his eyes. “We always imagine that people have only one reason for things they do,” he said. “So often, you know, they have several. Sometimes they even have reasons which seem to contradict one another.”

  “If she were hiding,” Mary said, “why wouldn’t she be found. Surely the police could find her. If she’s—alive.”

  “Now Miss Wister,” Heimrich said. He opened his eyes. “Actually,” he said, “it’s easier to find someone who isn’t alive.” He smiled, faintly. “They move around less,” he said. “You, for example, Miss Wister, shouldn’t have any great difficulty in hiding yourself for—oh, several days at least—if you wanted to.”

  Mary Wister shook her head. She said she wouldn’t know where to start.

  “Oh,” Heimrich said, “you’d start with money, I think. You’d spend money to get help. At least, if I were a young woman in a hotel like this, I’d start there.” He nodded. “Think about it, Miss Wister,” he advised her. He closed his eyes. “In a sense,” he said, “there are always perhaps a hundred people hidden in a hotel this size.”

  They both looked at him. Then Barclay MacDonald slowly nodded. Mary looked from one of the men to the other. She still was annoyed with both of them because they had seen her annoyed with herself at so trivial a thing as an envelope lost in a too-capacious purse.

  “You’re both very superior,” she said. She stood up. Then she wished she had not. What on earth is the matter with me? Mary Wister asked herself, and got no answer. Then she got an answer, which surprised her, and pushed it into a distant corner of her mind, where it shone with stubborn brightness. But by then, Mac was standing too, standing beside her; he was actually patting her shoulder. She started to draw away from his hand, and was surprised to discover that she did not.

  “Come on, lady,” Mac said. “Buy you a drink.”

  He looked down at Heimrich, still sitting, but Heimrich shook his head. Mary found that she was being taken to the Penguin Bar where, after the lounge had opened for cocktails, few people went.

  Heimrich watched them go. Then he waited. He did not have long to wait. Judge Robert Sibley again got up from the chair in which he had been sitting, and this time he did not change his mind. Coming toward Heimrich he was a tall and dignified man of sixty, gray haired, and with worry plain in his face—worry and, with it, resolution. He advanced toward Heimrich with the air of a man who has steeled himself, who wants to get something over with. He stopped and Heimrich stood up. Judge Sibley asked whether Heimrich could spare him a moment, and Heimrich said, “Naturally, judge.”

  “Where we won’t be interrupted,” Judge Sibley suggested, and again Heimrich said, “Naturally.” They went to the porch, to an enclosed section seldom used and now deserted. They found chairs in a corner; Heimrich refused a proffered cigar and watched while Judge Sibley cut the tip from one with the blade of a silver pocket knife, while the judge lighted his cigar with care. He was unhurried; Heimrich thought he was forcing himself to be unhurried.

  “I presumed you would want to talk to me,” Judge Sibley said, when the cigar was going. “My wife has told me.” He looked at Heimrich and waited.

  “Has she, judge?” Heimrich said. “About?”

  “Please, captain,” Judge Sibley said. “It’s is quite unnecessary to beat around the bush. About her conversation with Miss Wister. She was impulsive, of course—my wife is rather often impulsive, captain. She has a generous spirit, generous emotions. She—”

  “Miss Wister hasn’t said anything about a conversation with your wife,” Heimrich told him.

  Judge Sibley looked blank. He said, “But—”

  “No, judge,” Heimrich said. “Nothing at all.”

  “But she was just talking to you,” Judge Sibley said. “Surely—”

  “About another matter,” Heimrich said. “She’s received a message purporting to be from, or to be about, Miss Jones. Who has disappeared, you know.”

  Judge Sibley nodded his dignified head. The movement was abstracted; it at once accepted knowledge of Miss Rachel Jones’s disappearance and relegated it to the area of the irrelevant. Judge Sibley looked puzzled and, to some extent, taken aback, as a man might who has put his shoulder to a door presumed recalcitrant and had it swing open at the touch.

  “This,” Judge Sibley said, “makes it slightly difficult. I assumed, naturally, that Miss Wister would go at once to you. I assumed she had.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. He closed his eyes. He waited. He waited for almost a minute before Judge Sibley spoke again.

  “It does not really matter,” Judge Sihley said then. “If I had not come to you under this—this misapprehension, you would of course have come to me. I realize that.”

  “Yes, judge?” Heimrich said. “Why?”

  “It is unnecessary to be tactful,” Judge Sibley said. “Although I presume that is not precisely your purpose, captain. It is inevitable that you should consider me as a possible—murderer.” He hesitated over the word, spoke it with reluctance, seemingly with a kind of disbelief. “It is difficult for me to imagine myself in that position,” he said. “Very difficult.” He waited a moment, but Heimrich said nothing. “I’m not wrong in thinking that,” Judge Sibley told the policeman from New York. Heimrich opened his eyes.

  “Now judge,” he said. “As you know, it isn’t my case. I am a good many miles from my jurisdiction.”

  “Captain Heimrich,” Judge Sibley said, and spoke as if from an imaginary bench, “I am being frank with you. I propose to volunteer information. I expect reciprocal frankness.”

  He phrased his sentences as if he spoke from the bench; as if what he said would be taken down.

  “My wife went to Miss Wister to discover, to attempt to discover, at second-hand, what your views are as regards me,” the judge said. “It was ill advised. At the best she could have got only hearsay. But—she is worried. And a woman. It was natural, probably, that she should go to another woman.” He paused again, and again waited.

  “Very well,” Heimrich said. “You are being investigated, by a congressional committee. Wells was supposed to appear before that committee. I’ve wondered, naturally, what he would have said.” He closed his eyes. “You offer to be frank, judge.”

  “Yes,” Judge Sibley said. “Mr. Wells would have testified that my wife was, some years ago, associated with several organizations which are now on the Attorney General’s list as subversive. I presume he would have said, as people so often say, that she showed a predilection for communist causes. I presume that, as things presently are, his testimony would have resulted in an adverse report by the committee. I presume it would have made headlines in the newspapers—that my usefulness as a public servant would have been damaged, probably destroyed.” He paused once more. When he spoke again it was
only partly to Heimrich. “I have been a public servant for many years,” he said. “I hope an effective one. I know a loyal one.”

  Heimrich waited a moment. Then he said, “Go on, judge.”

  “My wife is not a careful person, captain,” Sibley said. He spoke slowly, seemed to seek accuracy. “She is not a calculating person. She is easily moved by—by human problems. Perhaps she is too quick to think that solutions have been found to certain problems. She is warm hearted and, as I said, impulsive. At one time she did join certain organizations which have, since, been found to be—or at any rate said to be—communist controlled. About that she knew nothing.” He looked very carefully at Heimrich, as if he tried to read in the square, impassive face what was in the mind. “She has no sympathy whatever with communism,” Judge Sibley said, spacing the words. “None whatever. She has never had.”

  Heimrich still waited for him to continue.

  “If, through what she had innocently done, years ago, my work would be interfered with, my wife’s heart would be broken, captain,” Sibley said. “In a very real sense, her life would be destroyed,” He waited for almost a minute before he spoke again, and then he did not look at Captain Heimrich. “So would mine,” Judge Sibley said. Then he looked at Heimrich. “That is quite simply true,” he added.

  “It was about this Mrs. Sibley spoke to Miss Wister?” Heimrich asked him. “In an effort to determine what importance I, that is the police, attach to this—situation?”

  “Yes,” Sibley said. He hesitated. I am afraid,” he said, “that there is another point. You may think it more significant. Mrs. Sibley and I have both said that, when Mr. Wells was killed, and again when you were attacked, we were together. In our room.” He hesitated. He drew in his breath. “That is not true,” he said. “On both occasions, I was out of the room. My wife has only my word for what I was doing.”

  “Now judge,” Heimrich said. “What were you doing?”

  “I was not killing Mr. Wells,” Sibley said. “I was not attacking you with—was it with a knife?”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Go on, judge.”

  “I have been worried lately,” Sibley said. “You can understand that, whatever credence you give to what I have told you. It has made it difficult to sleep. I’ve fallen into the habit of getting up when I am sleepless and reading for a time. Macaulay’s History of England. I find it very soothing. Are you familiar with Macaulay, captain?”

  Heimrich shook his head.

  “It has the effect of nembutal,” Judge Sibley said. “With no aftereffects or, at any rate, very few. I have a quite old set; quite small books. I carry a couple with me. When Mr. Wells was killed I was reading about the vagaries of James II. I had dressed and come downstairs to the lounge, which was entirely deserted.”

  “What time was this?” Heimrich asked.

  “I came down a little before four o’clock,” Sibley said. “About three forty-five, I think. I was out of the room until—well, until almost seven.” He smiled faintly. “Macaulay was unusually effective,” he said. “I went to sleep in my chair.”

  “You came down, I suppose, so as not to waken your wife?”

  Sibley nodded. He told Heimrich he knew the rooms of The Coral Isles. Comfortable, certainly. But not commodious. “My wife is wakened by light,” Sibley said. “Of course, she woke when I got up. I told her I was going to read for a time. She was used to that. She tells me she went back to sleep almost at once.”

  “You both said you were together,” Heimrich pointed out.

  “We did,” Judge Sibley said. “I regret to say that that was not true. We—well, I’m afraid we both took what seemed the easier way. Or—”

  “Mrs. Sibley was asked first,” Heimrich said. “By one of the sheriff’s men. You backed her up. Wasn’t that what happened?”

  “The responsibility is entirely mine,” Judge Sibley said. “I hope you will believe that.”

  “Very well,” Heimrich said. “Go on, judge.”

  “False testimony is always a mistake,” the judge said. “As well as being immoral. And—well, my wife is worried, captain.” He paused. “Deeply worried,” he said.

  Heimrich did not reply for a moment. Then he nodded.

  “I see, judge,” Heimrich said then. “You’re wise to tell me this, now. At least—”

  “I did not kill Wells,” Judge Sibley said. “If that were not true, this would be obviously unwise.”

  “Now judge,” Heimrich said. “Now judge. Perhaps it wouldn’t, you know. However—”

  “There are two more things,” Judge Sibley said. “First, I came to Key West to—to talk to Mr. Wells. I believed him to be a sincere man. I hoped to make him understand the situation. I felt that, if I could persuade him of my wife’s innocence of any—any subversive intention, he might—” He shrugged instead of finishing.

  “Not testify,” Heimrich said. “Naturally. Well, were you successful, judge?”

  Judge Sibley hesitated for a moment.

  “Would you believe me if I said I was?” he asked. “Since that would, of course, eliminate any motive I might have had?”

  “Now judge,” Heimrich said. “Now judge.”

  “Very well, then,” Judge Sibley said. “I was not successful, as it happened. Mr. Wells did not believe in my wife’s—innocence. Or, it did not matter to him. He said the facts would have to speak for themselves. He said it was his duty to give the facts. No, I was not successful, captain. I have a motive. I had opportunity. And—I probably was the last person to see Mr. Wells alive. With, of course, one exception.”

  Heimrich opened his eyes; he opened them wide.

  “At about four, perhaps five or ten minutes after, Mr. Wells came through the lounge,” Judge Sibley said. “He walked toward the stairs at the far end—the easterly end, I believe. He was alone. I assumed he was going up to his room. The stairs are there.”

  “You didn’t speak to him?”

  “No.” The judge paused. “I had done the talking I had to do,” he said. “With the results I gave you.”

  “You saw no one else?”

  “A woman was cleaning in the lounge, at the other end,” Judge Sibley said. “No one else.”

  “You didn’t see Wells come down again? Because he did, naturally.”

  “No. If he came back through the lounge, it may have been when I was asleep.” Judge Sibley looked puzzled. “Why would he go out again?” he asked.

  “Perhaps somebody wanted to talk to him,” Heimrich said. “Wanted to talk confidentially. The room wasn’t a good place—”

  “Of course,” Judge Sibley said. “The walls are thin. We can hear the couple next to us very plainly. And do, at all hours.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “That was probably the reason.” He closed his eyes. “Judge Sibley,” he said, “have you ever heard rumors connecting Mr. Oslen with communist activities?”

  “Oslen?” Judge Sibley said. “The pianist?”

  “Now judge,” Heimrich said. “Musicians can have other activities, naturally. They can have political views.”

  “Yes,” Judge Sibley said. “A pity. No, I never heard anything of the kind about Oslen. He was just a name to me until I met him here.”

  “Miss Jones says he’s a party member,” Heimrich said. “Acting under cover—what they call a ‘sleeper,’ I believe. And, she says, an agent provocateur.” He told the rest of it. Sibley listened in surprise; he looked at Heimrich with puzzlement, but if Heimrich noticed this, he paid it no atteniton.

  “Why are you telling me this, captain?” the judge asked, when Heimrich had finished.

  Heimrich opened his eyes. He smiled slightly.

  “Well,” he said, “Doctor MacDonald would say, because I’m a sieve.”

  Sibley waited.

  “However,” Heimrich said, and left it there. “Miss Jones has disappeared, as I said,” he added. “We haven’t been able to find her. Miss Wister is worried.”

  “And you aren’t?” Sibley
was silent a moment. “If you came to court, her testimony would be quite essential, captain. To establish motive, since what she’s told Miss Wister isn’t evidence, of course—isn’t admissible evidence. And since, if what she said is true, others who knew the truth wouldn’t be likely to come forward.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “There is that.” He waited. Sibley did not speak. “Well,” Heimrich said, “what you’ve told me has been interesting, judge. Very interesting, naturally.”

  X

  For some timeafter Judge Sibley left him, Captain Heimrich sat in the corner of the covered porch. He smoked several cigarettes. When he was alone, he kept his eyes open, although he did not appear to be looking at anything.

  It was, he decided, as clear as it was going to be until something happened. It was clear enough, but not for practical purposes. He considered what he knew, and reconsidered it. He nodded to himself. There was really no doubt, or very little. But—

  It was often this way. After a certain time, the truth became obvious, while at the same time remaining inconveniently subjective. The law required more, and of this Captain Heimrich whole-heartedly approved, being a man who whole-heartedly served the law. Academically, Heimrich was willing to assume, being also a speculative man, there was what people sometimes called a “higher law.” But Captain Heimrich had not, to his knowledge, yet encountered a situation to which the higher law, if it existed, was applicable. Further, the higher law was most commonly a “law” invented by an individual for his own purposes, or by a group of individuals for their own advancement.

  It came down, Heimrich thought with some amusement, to being scrupulous of the shell of the most inconspicuous egg—and this whether the egg was good or bad. It was not lawful, and hence not right, to break eleven good, or good enough, eggs in a search for the bad one in the dozen. It was equally not lawful to destroy the bad egg until it had been candled, no matter how convinced one might be of its badness. Of course, the progress of the law was frequently not rapid.