Death by Association

by Frances Lockridge

  She could not, in the faint light, identify the shadows, but there was in her mind no doubt as to their identity. The first, the smaller, the one who so slowly fled, was Rachel Jones; the larger, Oslen. The light played tricks; the pursuer seemed smaller than she would have expected, and a part of her mind—the part which could never leave such problems quite alone—tried to reason out the pattern of light and shadow which so distorted truth. Actually, seen as she saw them now, Oslen seemed a man of only ordinary size.

  Mary tried to increase her speed. But as she did she slipped, and felt herself falling away from the wall, and clutched frantically and found no handhold. She swayed, her body twisting. She must fall—and did not fall. She had caught herself. She went on again. But she realized, more clearly than before, why Rachel, for all the terror she must feel, moved so slowly in her flight along the ledge.

  The two reached the corner of the cistern shed, where two walls met at an oblique angle. There Rachel did try to run, and slipped and almost fell. The other clutched for her, taking advantage of the angle, which for a moment, while he was a few feet short of the sharp corner and she had passed it, brought her almost within reach. Shadowy hands clutched at the fleeing girl, and seemed to graze her, and for a moment both swayed and were about to fall. The man spoke, sharply, but his words were lost to Mary. The girl went on and the pursuer jumped from one ledge to the other, cutting off the tip of the angle, and gained. They had been, at a guess, a dozen feet or more apart, now they were barely ten. Then Rachel started again to run. She ran unsteadily, half turned so that both hands seemed to cling, to try to cling, to the smooth, wet wall. Still she did not cry out.

  Then Mary did.

  “No!” she cried, and her voice was strange, unlike her own, echoing from walls, from water. “Leave her—!”

  She did not finish. The pursuing figure stopped, and she thought turned to face her. Still it was only a shadow, without a face. But as she realized this, Mary had suddenly a strange conviction of something wrong, something incongruous. It was, as in a dream, one person faded into another, or seemed to fade, became—

  But now, and seemingly out of nowhere, there was another shadow. This was beyond the girl, coming toward the two on the ledge. Now Mary stopped and looked across the black water, and saw three converge, the girl between her former pursuer, who now had turned again to face away from Mary, had begun to advance again, and the new—the larger—man who came toward her, seeming to scuttle along the ledge.

  Against the wall, the three were like figures in bas-relief; it was as if such figures had come to life and to play out, in motion, some drama which was incomprehensible, yet fearsome.

  The girl was motionless, now, as the two came toward her. The smaller man, who had been behind her, reached out for her. She leaped away convulsively. But then the larger man reached too, and she seemed, as convulsively as before, to seek to avoid his outstretched hands.

  She staggered a moment, and twisted her body to regain balance on the ledge. She failed and fell toward the black water, and as she fell she screamed.

  For an instant, the two left on the ledge seemed to be rushing toward each other, reaching out toward each other. For a moment they grappled. Then the smaller fell away from the wall and in the darkness there was only the sound of churning water, loud in the echoing cavern.

  Then, without warning, bright light struck across the cavern, and the two in the water were in a brilliant circle. Paul Shepard’s face was white and staring in the light. He held Rachel in one arm and now, after an instant when his face was blank in the light, he began to pull himself and her through the water with his free arm. He began to swim toward the light, which had its source behind Mary.

  Mary turned then. Two men stood on the ledge just inside the door—which was an unbelievably short distance from where she stood, although she felt that for hours she had toiled along the ledge. One she did not recognize; the other, tall and thin, holding the electric torch, was Mac. Then a third man came with difficulty through the little door, as if he were being helped from behind by others. The third man had another torch, and as it went on, before it swept a beam around the ledge, the light caught for a moment the blackness of a sling against a white jacket.

  “She’s all right,” Shepard called, chokingly, from the water. “I’ve got her. I’ve—”

  But then the girl he held seemed to writhe under his arm, as if in panic. She escaped from him, as he clutched at her desperately, and for a second both went under the water.

  “Get her!” Heimrich said, sharply, and the man who had stood beside MacDonald dived into the water.

  The new swimmer churned toward the struggling two, along a path of light from the torch MacDonald held. The beam from Heimrich’s light swept along the ledge. It found Mary Wister and for an instant hesitated, it went on, past the corner, to William Oslen. Oslen stood on the ledge, his back to the wall, the palms of his hands pressed against the wall. His face was white in the light, without expression.

  The man who had been beside MacDonald had reached Shepard, now. He reached out a hand and seized the other man, pulling at him. Shepard turned toward him, and then Rachel Jones came up out of the dark water beyond Shepard and began to swim, with a kind of desperation, toward the light.

  “I’m all right!” Shepard shouted. “Get the girl. He tried—”

  “Now Mr. Shepard,” Heimrich said, and his voice harshly filled the great room. “We’ve had enough!” Shepard’s suddenly turned-up face was white in the merciless beam of the light. “It’s all over, Mr. Shepard,” Heimrich said, and his voice was as without mercy as the white light was.

  Heimrich’s light stayed on William Oslen.

  “You come along too, Mr. Oslen,” Heimrich said, and his voice was not noticeably more cordial.

  Then Barclay MacDonald spoke, for the first time.

  “And you, Mary, come here to me,” he said.

  “You—” Mary heard herself start to say, with a kind of inchoate anger in her voice.

  “Come now,” MacDonald said.

  Mary Wister went back along the precarious ledge. It did not seem so difficult, now. It took almost no time at all.

  XII

  Dr. Barclay MacDonaldsaid that he was very sorry. He said it had been a matter of some sick mice.

  The two of them were stretched on cushioned seats on the sun porch of The Coral Isles. The late morning sun was warm on their legs.

  “Mice,” Mary Wister said. “Mice of all things.” She turned to look at Barclay MacDonald. She was pleased to see that he had, somehow, managed to get a good deal of sun. By the next day, she thought, his forehead would begin to peel. “Sick mice.” She shook her head against the cushions. “I hope,” she said, “that they are doing as well as can be expected.”

  “Oh,” he said, “they’re all dead by now. But they did do better than we expected. Much better, really. It was suggestive, I think. Freddy’s quite excited about it. That’s why he telephoned. Of course, Freddy’s young, but still—” He stopped speaking and regarded her. “I’m afraid you’ll find I’m a good deal interested in mice,” he said. “Hamsters too, for that matter.”

  “Mice and cations,” Mary said.

  “Fruit flies, too,” Barclay MacDonald said.

  “Not in the house,” Mary said. “Where were you, Mac?” The search for a better name could wait. “Where was everybody?”

  “Almost exactly two minutes behind you,” Mac said. “Probably it seemed longer, but that’s what it was—two minutes. Incidentally, the captain says you yelled in his ear. Not in mine. I had to run. Running is counter-indicated at the moment but—”

  “Mac!” she said. “You didn’t—?” Her tone was anxious. She looked at his face, saw his smile. “If you think,” she said, in another tone.

  “It’s always seemed to me that the way to get sympathy is to ask for it,” Mac told her, with gravity. “Otherwise, how are one’s nearest and dearest to know?”

  “You!�
� Mary said, with force.

  “However,” Mac said, “I’m feeling quite well today, you’ll be glad to know.”

  “No doubt,” she said, “because the mice behaved so suggestively.”

  “Not entirely,” he said. He looked at her carefully. “Not even very much,” he said. “As you know, of course.”

  “Because you guessed right,” she said. “You did, didn’t you? And I was wrong?”

  “It’s always gratifying,” he admitted. “However—how do you feel, my dear?”

  She paused a moment; looked at him a moment.

  “All right,” she said, “I feel wonderful. I’m very glad about the mice, too. Although it’s too bad they’re dead on—on such a fine day.”

  “The mice,” MacDonald told her, “were in New Haven. It snowed heavily in New Haven yesterday, Freddy told me. I love you, Mary.”

  “Of course,” Mary said. “But there was a time last night I hated you.”

  He nodded.

  “By the way,” he said, “I like what you did. It wasn’t particularly bright. I should prefer you not to do anything of the kind again. But I like your having done it.”

  “There wasn’t anything else to do,” she said. “Apparently it didn’t make any difference. I could just have waited in the bar and—hello, captain.”

  Captain M. L. Heimrich stood in front of them and regarded them; he managed to keep his eyes open. He was urged to pull up a chair; he did so. He sat in it, with the sun on his back. He did not seem inclined to speech. But they waited. He opened his eyes.

  “Mr. Shepard isn’t talkative,” he said. “The assistant state’s attorney isn’t pleased. Keeps urging Mr. Shepard to co-operate.” He closed his eyes. “An interesting term under the circumstances,” he said. “One can see Mr. Shepard’s point, naturally.”

  “Will it make any difference, in the end?” Mary asked. Heimrich opened his eyes; he shook his head; he said he shouldn’t think so.

  “Miss Jones can testify he tried to drown her,” Heimrich said. “Make the jury wonder why, naturally. He’ll find it difficult to explain. Probably he’ll say he was protecting her from Oslen. But—Oslen wasn’t there yet. The chief deputy and I can testify to that. So, the jury’ll want to know—why?” He paused, as if he had concluded.

  “It isn’t very clear,” Mary said.

  “Now Miss Wister,” he said. “Why isn’t it?”

  She merely shook her head.

  “It seems very clear to me,” Heimrich said. “We invite a certain action. The invitation is accepted. The evidence is—arranged.” Heimrich closed his eyes. “I’ll admit Oslen was an added starter. As you were, Miss Wister. However—”

  “Now captain,” Dr. MacDonald said. “Quit having such a good time.”

  Heimrich opened his eyes; he seemed a little surprised.

  “Was I?” he asked. He considered. “Perhaps I was,” he said. “All right—first, we know it’s Shepard.”

  “But—” Mary said.

  “Now Miss Wister,” Heimrich said. “Of course we know. But we can’t prove. So, we enlist Miss Jones’s help.”

  “By ‘we’ you mean yourself,” Mary said, and got, “Now Miss Wister. The chief deputy, too.” Then Heimrich went on.

  “We count on Mr. Shepard’s character,” he said. “A very decisive man; a man who hates loose ends. Likes quick, final movements. Takes things into his own hands. As you must have noticed when you played with him yesterday, Miss Wister. Not a man to wait around. We offer him action—we offer him Miss Jones, come out of hiding, available.”

  “But Miss Jones didn’t—” Mary began, and then said, “Oh.”

  “Precisely,” Heimrich said. “She didn’t threaten him. She threatened Oslen. So, if something happened to her, we went after Oslen. You see, we’d have had to—whatever we thought. We would have had to dig up Oslen’s record—the FBI had enough of it, thanks largely to Miss Jones. A jury wouldn’t have left the box.”

  “Why would you have had to?” MacDonald asked.

  Heimrich hesitated.

  “The deputy sheriff would have had to,” Heimrich said. “The state’s attorney. They’re in charge, you know. As a matter of fact—” He stopped. He seemed uncharacteristically ill at ease for a moment.

  “Look,” MacDonald said, “did your deputy sheriff—Jefferson, isn’t it?—know who your trap was set for?”

  “Now doctor,” Heimrich said. “Now doctor.”

  “Well?”

  “I don’t,” Heimrich said, “remember that I told him in so many words. Didn’t think it was necessary, naturally. However—”

  He paused a moment.

  “Shepard had already tried it once,” he said. “After he saw me talking to García’s sister, found out García was on the loose, he pretended to try to kill me. Assuming we’d lay it to García, which would have been reasonable. As a matter of fact, the sheriff did want to settle for that. I—persuaded them. Pointed out that I might be thought to threaten a good many people.” He closed his eyes. “A very helpful man, Mr. Shepard,” he said. “A quick man with red herrings. So—”

  Shepard had been offered another opportunity. If Rachel Jones were found dead, or injured—“more probably the latter,” Heimrich said. “He didn’t really try to kill me. He did only what he thought necessary”—Oslen would be obvious. Rachel had been persuaded to act as bait, assured she was in no danger.

  “Did she know who you were after?” Mary asked.

  “Now Miss Wister,” Heimrich said. “Perhaps not. I don’t remember telling her.”

  “For a sieve,” Mary said, “you forget to tell a good many people a good many things, captain.”

  He considered that. He nodded. He said that he might be getting absent-minded.

  “So,” he said, “we arranged for Miss Jones to show herself just as it got dark, and arranged to be around, not showing ourselves. She was to run, but not too fast; we were to close in. But then—”

  Then Oslen had injected himself into proceedings otherwise going according to plan. Rachel had seen him and panicked; had run for the shelter of the water shed. “It’s hard to have faith in protection you can’t see, naturally,” Heimrich said. “It’s understandable she lost her nerve.”

  Heimrich and the sheriff’s men had not, Heimrich admitted, seen Oslen as soon as Rachel had. They had been following Shepard. They did see the girl go into the shed, and see Shepard go in after her. They were about to close in when Oslen appeared and followed the others.

  “Then, of course, it wasn’t urgent,” Heimrich said. “Oslen would take care of Shepard, see the girl wasn’t hurt, naturally. He was the last person to want her hurt. Then you showed up, Miss Wister, and went into the shed too.” He looked at her. “Very unexpected, that,” he said.

  “A complication,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Now Miss Wister,” Heimrich said. “Not that, exactly. An impartial witness. Witnesses are always welcome, naturally.”

  “It was all confused,” Mary said. “Dark—uncertain. I—I’m afraid I didn’t understand what was happening, captain.”

  “No,” he said. “Well, Shepard’s scheme didn’t work. He wanted to get her in the open, knock her out. But, as it was, she saw him. So—he would have had to kill her. But Oslen blocked that—he went around the shorter two sides of the triangle, you know, and intercepted them. So Shepard pushed the girl in the water, knowing you were there but that you couldn’t see clearly, and jumped in to ‘save’ her. It was the best he could do, by that time. Actually, of course, he tried to drown her. That would have left it between him and Oslen, and take your pick. You couldn’t have, with any certainty, could you?”

  “No,” Mary said.

  It was fortunate, Heimrich said, that Rachel Jones would have no trouble. So—

  Again, he seemed to consider his explanation finished.

  “You knew it was Shepard,” Mary said.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Oh yes.”

  Mary a
nd MacDonald waited.

  “The point,” Heimrich said, “is to have the character fit the crime. Have I said that?”

  He was assured that he had. He nodded; he closed his eyes. It was obvious, he said, that Shepard’s fitted. He was told that that was not enough; that there must have been more. He agreed. There had been a few things; not many, most of the answer had been visible in character. But—

  “A package of cigarettes, of course,” Heimrich said. “Two lies, one provable and the other probably provable. Of course, Shepard wasn’t the only one who lied. Both the Sibleys did, as they later admitted. Oslen did, when he said he had come here to rest, and only that, before going on a tour. That was obviously a lie—pianists practice before a tour. He hadn’t made any provisions to practice—admitted it. Naturally, I didn’t believe him. He’d come to see Wells, as Miss Jones said. Things like that helped—and, of course, hindered. However—”

  The cigarettes found in Wells’s pocket after he had been killed helped, Heimrich told them. It was obvious they had been put there purposely, not by Wells himself. “Because,” Heimrich said mildly, “Wells didn’t smoke. Told us all that the other night—or told anyone who was listening, and who rememhered. Shepard didn’t, apparently.” The only conceivable purpose in planting the cigarettes would be to indicate that Wells had been away from the hotel, in the town. The only conceivable reason for indicating that would be to involve García. Therefore, García was innocent. Naturally. It became necessary to consider only those at the hotel.

  Heimrich ticked them off; Shepard, Oslen, the Sibleys. “You two,” Heimrich said, and nodded at Mary and MacDonald. “I didn’t take you very seriously, Miss Wister. To be honest, I couldn’t tie you in. You were different, doctor. You did tie in but—” He shrugged. It hurt his shoulder and he made a slight face. “I’ve always found revenge difficult to believe in,” he said. “You’re a research man and hence a patient man. Violence seemed out of character.”