Punch With Care

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  “That ‘Macy’ and ‘Doc’ business isn’t good!” Asey returned. “I don’t like it—tell me, when did you find that cigarette lighter?”

  For just the fraction of a second, Jack hesitated.

  “On my way back from the beach. I got mixed up with these lanes—one of ’em looks just like another when you’re on foot—and it took me a good hour to get back here. Somehow I landed way down there by where this lane here meets the one that goes to the Douglass’s house.”

  “I see.” Asey said. “Well, that’s all very interestin’. Between you an’ me, of course, there’s a lot more to this business than just the theft of a few quohaugs!”

  “I thought so!” Jack said. “I didn’t think that you’d be called into action for just a few stolen clams! I guessed there was more. What’s the story?”

  “Looting.” Asey thought to himself that was one way to describe the removal of a corpse!

  “Oh. Just looting.” Jack sounded disappointed.

  “It’s pretty serious lootin’,” Asey said honestly. “But we’re not talkin’ about it now. What happened,” he started up the roadster, “to your date? Do I gather you got stood up?”

  “Don’t tell Layne,” Jack said, “but I was supposed to meet Mrs. Boone. Purely on business, of course.”

  “Oh, sure,” Asey said. “Why else would you be meetin’ the head of your college?”

  “Exactly! Only Layne would—well, you know how girls are! Anyway, when I went back from the beach to the Douglass’s, I saw this car of yours, and—oh, I was sore, and I’d been sitting around since before noon, waiting, and griping, and I was hungry, and generally burned up—I just took the car. I only intended to go to the village and get something to eat before I met Layne! Now that I see that dashboard lighted up, I wonder how I ever managed to start it—and say, what did I do to make it go so slowly? Or did you do something to it at the garage?”

  Asey chuckled, and explained to him about the parade speed.

  “You mean that it really was originally built for a prince? Wow!” Jack whistled. “I thought when I first saw it on the turntable, gleaming in the sun, that it was the car to end all cars—it just burst on me! It knocked my eyes out! It sent me! I couldn’t help throwing my weight around when I drove into that gas station! Why, by then I was feeling like a damn Balkan prince!”

  Asey found himself remembering Gerty’s theory of Jack’s egging her friend Stinky on to take the car, earlier. But if Jack had never seen it before it burst on him at the Douglass’s, then that notion of hers wouldn’t work out at all.

  Get an explanation of why one took it, he thought wearily as he started off down the lane, and it only led you to wondering why in blazes the other fellow had swiped it!

  Over at the Douglass’s, Cummings and Layne were waiting on the turntable with the other roadster.

  “It’s marvelous to drive! It’s simply super, Mr. Mayo!”

  Layne stood for a moment in the full glare of the headlights, and Asey had his first real chance to take a good look at the girl.

  She was tall—taller than Gerty—slim, dark-haired, graceful. She had none of Gerty’s bounce, Asey thought, and she certainly wasn’t the type anyone would automatically put in the front row of a chorus. But she had charm. And when she smiled and her face lighted up, Asey decided that she could give Gerty a run for her money any day in the week.

  “It’s simply the keenest car—”

  “Hey, what’s all that?” As he got out of the roadster, Asey interrupted her and pointed to the floodlights glowing beyond the house. “What’s going on out there? Something wrong with the railroad?”

  “Oh, no!” Layne said. “That’s for Aunt Della!”

  “For who?”

  “Aunt Della. Damn her!” Layne said vigorously. “Layne’s just explained it to me, Asey,” Cummings said. “Seems that Aunt Della Hovey always planted dahlias on this day of May—in the evening if it hadn’t rained, and in the afternoon if it had, or was. The Douglasses are carrying on the tradition.”

  “It’s more of that idiocy from the book!” Layne said. “I’m so tired of it and so bored with it. That’s the keenest car—”

  “Er—what book? ” Asey wanted to know.

  “We have this silly book full of Aunt Della items—you see,” Layne said, “when Louise and Harold bought this house from her, they faithfully promised her that they’d do all sorts of things—and they actually do! For my part, I can’t think why—can you, doctor?”

  “I don’t know that I ever bothered to think why,” Cummings returned. “It always seemed to me that they just enjoyed doing all those things.”

  “I think it’s some sort of compensation—possibly for their lack of roots,” Layne said quite seriously. “Think of it! Think of our having to live in that sitting room, crammed to the ceiling with Hovey family litter! Think of our always having to burn apple wood in the fireplaces because Brother Willie—that was Aunt Della’s brother—always said that apple wood should be burned in his fireplaces, and nothing else! And we have the Bible facing east, because that was how Aunt Della’s great-greatgrandmother said it should be! And all those graves in the cemetery!”

  “You mean,” Asey said, “you even have to tend to them?”

  “Tend them, and take flowers on prescribed days—and prescribed flowers, too! Costs a small fortune, because no one ordinarily grows what’s prescribed any more—you simply can’t imagine how much Harold had to pay for a certain variety of mignonette that Aunt Della insisted on!”

  Asey laughed.

  “It isn’t funny!” Layne said. “We have to have goose at Christmas, though none of us like it very much, and salmon and green peas on the Fourth of July, and baked Indian pudding on someone’s birthday—Brother Willie’s or Brother Tom’s, I forget which. Frankly, hardly a day passes that we’re not stewing around doing something for Aunt Della or one of her clan! And tonight is Dahlia Night.”

  “Who’s doin’ the plantin’?” Asey asked.

  “Harold and Louise and Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary withstood Aunt Della for a long while,” Layne said, “but I notice that she’s given in lately. It finally wore even her down. She attends to putting the January first headlines of the Boston newspapers into the secret drawer of Cousin Lucy’s mahogany desk that Uncle Willie—never to be confused with Brother Willie!—brought from Jamaica. That headline business was a whim of Young Elisha, a stray cousin who used to live here. And Aunt Alary also—oh, I do wish you all wouldn’t roar so. It may sound terribly amusing, but it’s simply hideous to live with!”

  “Annual headlines in a secret drawer!” Cummings said weakly. “That’s one I never heard of before! Haven’t any secret rooms, have you, that you have to tidy and put clean starched curtains in annually?”

  Layne said wearily that seemed to be the only item they’d been spared.

  “And please!” she went on, “please, doctor, don’t ever bring up the topic of secret rooms in this household!”

  “Why not?” All the laughter had disappeared from Cummings’s voice.

  “It’s a very sore subject,” Layne said. “You see, secret rooms are Aunt Mary’s hobby.”

  10

  CUMMINGS’S FOOT ground down on Asey’s instep, and his fingers pinched Asey’s arm.

  “Is that so!” he said. “Well, well! I didn’t know that, Layne!”

  “Oh, yes. Secret rooms have been a lifetime hobby of hers. Practically her only hobby, as a matter of fact. She found one by accident in England, on her honeymoon, and it simply went to her head.” Layne stopped and lighted a cigarette. “She’s never stopped hunting them since. Why, for years and years, she rushed around here waving a hammer and a chisel, banging and prying!”

  “She ever find any trace of one?” Asey inquired casually.

  “Of course not—but she nearly ruined the wainscoting in the front hall near the chimney,” Layne said, “and Louise and Harold finally had to make her promise to stop being so destructive. But she s
till goes wandering around with tape measures, hopefully measuring—oh, I forgot! D’you want to ask the family any questions about this afternoon, Mr. Mayo? I’m sure if they’d seen anything strange, they’d have spoken about it—and it’s only fair to warn you they’ll probably thrust a spade into your hand and set you to work.”

  “Could I maybe just take a peek at ’em?” Asey asked. “I’d like to see this Annual Dahlia Festival of Aunt Della’s in action.”

  “Come along, then!” Layne said. “But do be quiet—if they catch sight of us trooping around the drive, we’ll all be digging for Aunt Della!”

  The quartet tiptoed around to the back of the house and silently watched the dahlia planting that was taking place with the aid of two floodlights that had apparently been swung around from the railroad station.

  Asey’s eyes narrowed as he got his first glimpse of Aunt Mary.

  Harold Douglass wasn’t a short man, but Aunt Mary gave the impression of towering head and shoulders above him. Actually, Asey realized as the dahlia planters stood up and stretched, she wasn’t more than an inch or two taller, but her erect carriage and her broad, powerful shoulders created an illusion of great height.

  He grinned suddenly as he recalled his previous surprise on finding out from Louise that an elderly aunt should have contemplated changing the beachwagon’s flat tire all by herself!

  This particular elderly aunt looked to him entirely capable of changing flat tires by the dozen—and doubtless she could also throw in a complete engine overhaul without batting an eyelid!

  Cummings moved close to Asey.

  “No impromptu grave-digging there!” he whispered. “Looks like plain, honest planting to me!”

  Asey nodded. “Same here.”

  “Don’t you think,” Cummings went on, “that you’d better see about Aunt Mary before you go to check up on that Shearing woman? I do!”

  Asey hesitated, and then shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I want to, doc, but I can’t.”

  Asey turned and walked over to where Layne and Jack were standing, and waited for them to finish their whispered conversation. “Miss Douglass, I can only sum that up as a mighty interestin’ sight!”

  “But doesn’t it appall you?” Layne asked as they all started back toward the turntable. “I mean, to think that people can live that way—and like it? With those silly schedules? Doing this for Brother Willie, and that for Aunt Della, and something else for Cousin Lucy—and all people they never even knew?”

  Asey chuckled. “You ought to meet my cousin Jennie, Miss Douglass, an’ find out why we plant peas when we do, an’ just how our annual spring house-cleanin’ date got set! Nun-no, this really don’t dumbfound me so much. I’m used to roots—come on, doc, we’re late! I still wonder,” he said as he pocketed the keys of the new roadster, “how this vehicle got here!”

  “I’m getting to be awfully afraid it must have been someone from the project who’s responsible!” Layne said. “I’ll look into that, and see that you’re apologized to. Sometimes that crowd lets themselves get carried away. I do hope you find those men you’re hunting—and I’d really adore to drive either car anywhere for you!”

  “Thanks—just let it stay here till I can send someone for it,” Asey said as he and the doctor got into the old roadster.

  That extra car, which had at first seemed such a nuisance, would provide an excellent excuse for him to return at any time, he thought to himself.

  “If you’re going to the village, could I hook a ride with you?” Jack asked.

  “Why don’t you wait,” Layne spoke up before Asey could answer, “and settle things? The crowd’s gone, and the house is quiet. Wait, and I’ll drive you up later. Good-bye, doctor! Good-bye, Mr. Mayo!”

  Cummings waited until the old roadster was speeding down the lane to the main road before he pulled out a cigar.

  “Slow down enough for me to light this, will you, Asey? I honestly haven’t dared to smoke, I’ve been so afraid I might take this lighter out of my pocket without thinking! Tell me, did we fox that Briggs fellow, or didn’t we?”

  “I’m not sure, doc.”

  “Humpf!” Cummings said. “Neither am I! Asey, they were all planting dahlias innocently enough while we watched ’em, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have buried Boone before we came!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And that business of Aunt Mary’s hobby being secret rooms—I tell you, I nearly forgot myself and let out with a wild yelp at that one! Secret rooms, think of it! Asey, there’s no reason why there couldn’t be a secret room in Aunt Della’s house!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It couldn’t be anywhere near the front hall, or around the center chimney, of course,” Cummings went on with enthusiasm, ‘‘because I was right there in the living room and could have seen—Asey, I’ll bet the old girl was starting to bring the body into the house when I went rushing out, after hearing that noise! Then, because I was in her way, she lured me on down to the boat house—I always thought it sounded like her walk! And then, after she’d locked me up out of the way, she went back to the house and hid the body in the secret room—which, of course, she’d previously found, but never told the Douglasses about! Yes?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Cummings said acidly that because he’d been playing the part of a quohaug inspector, there was no reason for him to act like a damned quohaug himself!

  “Say something! Don’t just sit there, letting me ramble on!”

  “I like it, doc. There’s nobody else I know,” Asey said appreciatively, “that could begin to twist so many stories out of a simple set of facts, like your hearin’ a noise, an’ followin’ someone, an’ gettin’ locked up! First you worked it out with Layne, then with Louise, an’ now—”

  “Why didn’t you talk to her—I mean, to Aunt Mary?” Cummings interrupted. “Why didn’t you tackle her out there among the dahlia bulbs, anyway?”

  “Too many people were around, an’ too many explanations would’ve had to be made, doc,” Asey said. “I certainly want to talk to her, goodness knows, but I want to know first exactly what this Miss Shearin’ actually said over the phone. For all we know, maybe she did tell Aunt Mary that Mrs. Boone was all right an’ with her! Maybe Boone is with her, for that matter! Could be!”

  “Yes, I suppose you couldn’t very well have said anything without going back to the murder,” Cummings said thoughtfully, “and to judge from the-general mirth and gaiety of that dahlia planting, the Douglass menage has put murder firmly out of its mind—d’you realize, Asey, that Layne has absolutely no inkling of anything? I pumped her just a bit as we drove over—Louise never even told her that you and I had been there! Humpf! D’you think that fool quohaug act was worth all the effort?”

  Asey said that he did. “After all, your favorite suspect—as of half an hour ago—got an alibi. Layne’s story of bein’ on the beach with Gerty checks with Gerty’s story of bein’ there with Layne!”

  “Now why do you call her my favorite suspect?” Cummings demanded indignantly. “Oh, I’ll admit that things did look somewhat suspicious for Layne a while back, but I never seriously considered her a suspect! She’s a nice girl. Little high-handed, maybe, and a little too opinionated—but that’s just being young. Got a nice smile, hasn’t she? And after all, she and that ex-Wac were together—it’ll be simple enough for you to check up on ’em before noon! By the way,” he added, “how did your new car get over there? We improvised so much so quickly, I’ve actually lost all track of the truth!”

  “I left it with Gerty, over by the mud hole,” Asey said. “She planned to bring Stinky back in it. I assume they came, and then went off in someone else’s car—one of the project’s, I suppose. Only Layne didn’t see’em.”

  “Know what I think?” Cummings remarked.

  “Think you got that secret room located?” Asey said with a laugh.

  “Oh, that!” Cummings spoke as though the secr
et room angle were something that had been brought up several centuries before. “I think that Briggs is a nasty character, Asey! I mean, when you come right down to it, Aunt Mary Framingham is a nice person. Little highhanded, perhaps, and a little too opinionated—”

  “But she’s got a nice smile?” Asey interrupted drily. “You know what I’m driving at! You can build up any amount of circumstantial evidence about her, but she’s a decent person! But this Briggs fellow, though—now I don’t like him!”

  “I didn’t at first,” Asey said, “but I’m not sure it isn’t just his face. When you don’t see his face, you don’t mind him—oh, I forgot to tell you about how he spent the afternoon, an’ about the stranger he seen prowlin’ around the shore. Seems—”

  Cummings snorted at the conclusion of Asey’s recital. “That’s absolutely nothing but quick thinking on his part, Asey! He heard Layne say that she and Gerty had been on the beach, and because she’d planted them there, why he planted himself as being near, and watching—you know damn well there’s no earthly way to back-check a yam like that! Humpf! So Boone stood him up!”

  “I can understand why,” Asey commented.

  “That’s not the point!” Cummings said. “Point is, the fellow’s trying to accent the assumption that she’s alive, in his estimation—don’t you get it? He’s smart! It was smart of him to throw in Eric in such an indistinct fashion, too! And much smarter to insinuate Eric than to invent a common or garden stranger with a beard! Brought him in very disarmingly, I must say!”

  “Lookin’ idly over this whole bunch,” Asey said, “I don’t think I ever seen a more completely disarmin’ crew! They’re all so doggone innocent about the things they did, they can’t even tell you the time of day they did ’em! Seems to me I’ve asked a thousand people what time something happened, an’ they just all shrug careless-like, an’ say, ‘Oh, from maybe perhaps about a quarter-to-this to aroundabouts-half-past-something-else—more or less!’ Nobody’s got the time of anything down pat. No, sir, no definite, split-second nonsense with this crowd! Fifteen minutes one way or another, or even an hour—”