The Man Who Died Twice

by The Man Who Died Twice (retail) (epub)

  She wore a slack suit and her hair had been combed. About her mouth the skin still showed the effect of the recent taping but cream of some kind had apparently been applied to sooth the irritation, for there was a shininess to her lips when she looked at Ward and smiled.

  She came right to him as he rose and he said: “Is it all right?” and she said: “Yes, it’s all right. I—I’m glad you did it, Duncan.”

  The way she looked at him told him what she said was true and he had an odd tingly feeling when she used his name. Duncan, he thought. The way she said it, it sounds all right.

  Major Gilette looked very spruce and alert and there was nothing sleepy about the shrewd, level way he inspected the others in the room. He accepted coffee. He thanked Osborne for a cigarette and a light. He seemed in no hurry, and waited until most of the others had finished before he got at the business at hand. When Osborne tidied the trays on the desk and went behind it to sit down, Gilette turned to Dunham.

  “I imagine that notebook was behind all this, Gordon.”

  Dunham did not look up. “Yes,” he said.

  Gilette glanced at Alma. “You knew it. You must have known he was after it that first night.”

  “I didn’t think about it,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “Not then. Not until I saw it the next day and read what Johnny had written.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the truth?” Gilette said, accusingly but not unkindly. “Why in heaven’s name didn’t you—”

  “You don’t have to badger her, Freddie.” Kate Royce wore a shapeless robe but her white hair looked as if she was about to take in a party. “She knows she should have told you.”

  “I couldn’t make myself believe Gordon could do a thing like that. I tried, and I couldn’t—not unless there was some proof.”

  Gilette sighed and his remarks were philosophical. He said such things had happened before. He said he supposed it was understandable for a person to refuse to suspect someone close to him.

  “I’ve known cases,” he said, “when such mistaken loyalty cost an additional life, just as this almost cost you yours.… Do you want to tell us about it, Gordon, or am I going to have to use the notebook?”

  “I’ll tell you.” Dunham dropped his hands but he did not look up. He was hunched forward, forearms on knees, staring dully at the floor ahead of him. “I was short eleven hundred dollars,” he said. “I had to take it from the bottling works’ funds. Wyatt said if I didn’t pay he’d go to Johnny and—”

  “Wyatt?” Gilette cut in.

  The name sounded familiar to Ward, and when Dunham continued he knew why. Wyatt was the elderly man who had taken a poke at Mike Fabyan at the Club Morgan, and now Dunham retold the story of the other occasion when Wyatt had punched Dunham in a moment of drunken jealousy.

  “We’d played cards three or four times a week for nearly a year,” Dunham said. “Gin rummy and later canasta. At first we broke about even and later he began to win and one day when I was short I gave him an I.O.U. That’s what started it. After that it was the easiest thing to do, give another chit when I lost and take one back when I won. I had no idea how much they amounted to and he used to joke about them.”

  He hesitated, seemed about to look up but did not quite make it. “We were friends, you understand,” he said miserably. “There wasn’t any question of eventual payment. He expected me to win everything back and it seemed so simple that I lost track of the amount entirely. It was never mentioned. Then that afternoon at the party he went completely off the deep end. He said he’d been watching me carrying on with his wife. It was a disgusting exhibition and even after he had hit me he would not listen to reason. He showed me the I.O.U.’s. He counted them in front of me—had them all neatly tucked in his wallet as if he’d been waiting for just such a chance—and demanded payment. When I came here later, wondering what I would say to Johnny, I learned he’d had his stroke.

  “That’s what did it,” he said with sudden bitterness. “He was supposed to die and he didn’t. He lay there in a coma for four days and each day the doctor said it would be his last, and then he was conscious and getting stronger instead of weaker.” His voice rose uncontrollably and he looked up, glaring, as though someone present was at fault. “Why didn’t he die when he should have?” he demanded. “Why did he have to—”

  Gilette cut him off in crisp, level tones. “You took the money,” he said, “because you felt certain the loss would never be discovered. You were able to falsify accounts because you were the treasurer.”

  “No one could have known but Johnny,” Dunham said. “He was too weak at first to bother with business. He grew stronger but he still took no interest in his affairs, and I kept waiting, wondering each day if this would be the one he would find out about it.”

  “He did find out about it,” Gilette said, and when Dunham seemed not to understand the inference he said: “He must have found out or he wouldn’t have called his lawyer and made those notes. He must have called you the night he died.”

  “He did.” Dunham let his breath out and his voice sank. “He spent the evening looking over his accounts—the mill, the distillery, the bottling works, everything—because he wanted him”—he looked at Ward—“to start an audit the following morning. He telephoned me and I came up. He called me a thief …”

  He went on in the same listless monotone and suddenly Ward’s thoughts slid off on a tangent and a piece of the mental puzzle which had baffled him for so long slipped into place. Swiftly then, no longer hearing Dunham, his mind went back while a new excitement began to work on him. He sat up, brows warped as this new pattern took shape, a remoteness working on his narrowed gaze. He made himself listen so that he could follow every word.

  “You came back later,” Gilette was saying.

  “To ask him to reconsider.”

  “And the notebook was gone?”

  “I knew Oliver had taken it up to Alma’s room.”

  “It was no good to you in any event with MacQuade still alive. You made sure he was dead. You had to.”

  “I did.”

  Gilette took a breath and let it out slowly and a look of satisfaction slid swiftly across his face. He looked about and adjusted his belt. He seemed to have trouble making up his mind what he should do next.

  “But I had no idea of hurting her,” Dunham protested. “She woke up and I grabbed the pillow to keep her from screaming. I had to get out.”

  “Tell us about tonight,” Gilette prompted. “You knew that Alma would have to tell the truth about that notebook; that’s why you came last night.”

  “I was going to kill her,” Dunham said. “I told you I went to the Club Morgan. I saw Len’s car at Barbara’s. I kept thinking that once you knew the truth about the notebook you’d have a motive for me. I took more than five drinks. I don’t know how many it was but I had to have something to build up my courage.”

  He paused, twisting his hands and staring again at the floor, as though it was physically painful to continue his confession.

  “I was going to smother her. I worked myself into a state of mind where the thing became an obsession. I left home by the bedroom window and came up here and saw that someone was in the drawing-room. I heard Kate say Alma must take two sleeping-pills …”

  Someone made a soft sound and Ward saw that it was Alma. “Yes,” she breathed. “I thought I saw someone on the veranda. It was you.”

  Dunham did not seem to hear her. “Then I thought of the cruiser. It seemed the way to do it because then I would not have to kill with my hands.… She never woke up until I had her in the skiff,” he said tonelessly.

  “I would have finished the job last night but I knew there was no petrol in the tanks. I knew I had to wait and I felt sure no one would find her in that forward locker. It would have been too small for anyone but her and when they searched—I knew that somebody would—I had to gamble that no one would even think of looking there.”

  “You had the can of gasoline
hidden on the beach,” Ward said.

  “I put it there after dark.”

  “But you were coming round the house when I saw you.”

  “I had to get the cabin key.” He broke off and sat silently until Gilette prompted him. Then he said: “It would be easy to slip the mooring and lash the wheel. If anyone heard the motor it would be too late. No one could find it in the darkness; it would sink somewhere outside.”

  “And you wore dark pajamas so you could swim diagonally from the cruiser to your bungalow.” Ward hesitated as a new thought came to him. Apparently Gilette had the same idea in mind.

  “What about your wife?” he asked.

  “I gave her a sleeping-powder in a drink.”

  “Is that why you were hanging around, Mike?” Gilette said to Fabyan.

  The big man pushed away from the wall, his dark face bleak and his expression contemptuous when he looked at Dunham.

  “Judith and I had an agreement,” he said. “A sort of standing date whenever I was in port. A place on the beach where I could wait for her. Sometimes she could sneak out and sometimes she couldn’t. It was a chance I had to take.”

  “You waited there tonight until three?” Gilette asked in some amazement.

  “I didn’t come until after midnight. I’m a patient man when it’s important to me.”

  Gilette remained dubious but he let it pass and turned again to Dunham.

  “You would have sent the cruiser out to sea with her cocks open if it hadn’t been for Ward.”

  “No.”

  “What?” Gilette peered at him. “But you just said—”

  “That’s what I wanted to do but I couldn’t.” Dunham looked up, all color gone from his face, his bloodshot eyes wretched. “I lost my nerve,” he said. “I tried. I knew I had to but I couldn’t. If I’d been drunk—”

  He broke off, seeing now the disbelief in those who watched him. He stumbled on, his voice suddenly desperate.

  “You’ve got to believe that,” he cried. “You saw me,” he said to Ward. “You must have seen me start to throw the can away before you grabbed me. I was fighting to make myself do this thing and all I could feel was a monstrous loathing at myself and suddenly, I don’t know why or how, I knew I had to get rid of the can, at once, before I changed my mind.… You saw me,” he said again to Ward. “You must have—”

  His voice trailed off forlornly and all at once Ward knew that what he had just heard could be true. It amazed him that he should think so but now he relived again the moment before he had grabbed Dunham’s ankle. He seemed to hear the other curse and he remembered the despair and frustration in the imagined sound. It would be the sort of noise a man would make when, in a final, impulsive moment, he admitted defeat.

  And the gasoline can.

  Dunham had started to swing it before he, Ward, had moved. It had sailed far over his head, its impetus conceived before Dunham knew of his danger. Otherwise he would not have hurled it from him, but crashed it straight down on Ward’s head.

  “I believe him,” he said, still a bit surprised that he should say so. “He did throw the can before I grabbed him.”

  Gilette examined him with steady eyes. “It’s possible,” he said, “but unimportant now. It does not alter the fact of murder.… You came here the other night, Gordon,” he said, “and, knowing the will would be changed if MacQuade lived, deliberately smothered—”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “No,” Dunham said, his eyes wild.

  “Oh, come, man.” Gilette seemed to control himself with an effort. “You said you made sure he was dead. It would be pointless to make a fuss about that notebook unless you were sure.”

  “I admit he was dead. I came back to plead with him and I thought he was asleep. I was afraid to wake him and afraid not to. I took his shoulder and spoke to him. I shook him. When I couldn’t wake him I felt his pulse and there wasn’t any.”

  He stopped as abruptly as he had begun. He looked about, jaw sagging and his shiny face incredulous.

  “Great God, Freddie,” he said when the truth dawned on him. “You don’t think I killed him. He was dead, I tell you. And I knew I couldn’t help him then—I thought it was the stroke we all had been expecting—and that’s when I knew I had to get the notebook.”

  22

  THE silence that followed the frantic denial expanded swiftly through the room, its sudden pressure holding everyone speechless and immobile. A second dragged by and then another, the spell growing as each refrained from breaking it until, when it seemed no longer bearable, Gilette took it upon himself to make the necessary effort.

  He coughed. He cleared his throat. “You don’t really expect anyone to believe that, do you, Gordon?” he asked.

  “But—it’s true.”

  Ward sat up. He took a moment to glance about, at Osborne behind the desk, Gilette and Dunham on the couch, Fabyan leaning against the wall again, Kate and Alma in their chairs on his right. Then he knew it was time to do a little talking of his own.

  His lawyer’s mind had been busy since six that afternoon and he had facts now that he did not have then. He had in his pocket a bit of evidence which had been unavailable to Gilette. He had understood its value even as he sat waiting in the darkness on the lawn, but at that time it did not seem quite enough. Now things were different and this seemed like an opportune moment to say so.

  “I think I believe him,” he said.

  “You do?” Gilette inspected him curiously. “Would you mind telling me why?”

  “I’ll try. It may take a while.” Ward hesitated, concentrating, wanting to be sure he was understood. “Let’s start with something we all can accept,” he said. “Dunham had to have the notebook. Alma protected him for reasons of her own but he knew you were going to make her tell the truth in the morning. Once you had the truth you’d have a motive for murder. Dunham knew it, knew he had no alibi for either job. He got scared. Somehow he thought up the crazy idea that he’d have to kill her in order to be safe. He might have done so last night when he was drunk if he hadn’t been too chicken-hearted. Instead he thought up the idea of the cruiser, but again, at the last moment, he lost his nerve.”

  “Suppose we accept that premise for now,” Gilette said. “I still don’t see how—”

  “Your idea is that all this is the work of one man?”

  “I had thought so, yes.”

  “Then, if Dunham is the one who killed Tenney, why didn’t he kill Alma when he had the chance?”

  Gilette frowned, thinking hard. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “We know that Alma trapped the killer in Tenney’s bedroom when she telephoned the police. We know the killer threw a robe over her head and slugged her, not hard, just enough to stun her and give him a chance to get out. Why then, if the man was Dunham, who knew he had to stop her from reading the notebook—why, when he had a perfect opportunity, didn’t he slug her a little harder and do the job then and there? Why fool around stealing into her room or carrying her out to the cruiser?”

  Gilette chewed on the questions. You could see him working on them and it was apparent that he was impressed by Ward’s reasoning.

  “You may have something there,” he said reluctantly. “Have you any other ideas?”

  “One or two.” He paused to get his thoughts in order. “Will you accept the premise that Tenney, coming back for gasoline or a car the night MacQuade died, saw something that told him who the killer was?”

  “I will for now.”

  “Tenney ran out of gas. He walked back. I saw him there in the darkness but I have to assume now that he had come back a minute or two before that.” He hesitated again to visualize the setting as he remembered it.

  “The light was on here in the study. Tenney came walking back. He wanted transportation but he did not want to wake anyone if he could help it. I think he probably came over here first to see if MacQuade was up. Exactly what he saw I don’t know. Maybe the act of murder
, maybe the killer taking the mortgages out of the open safe. Whatever he saw it was enough to make him try blackmail later but right then I think he backed away to think about what he had seen, to wonder what he should do. Apparently that is when I came to the main entrance and saw him start to move towards me.”

  He paused again to see how Gilette was taking this. After a moment the other nodded. “I’ll accept that, too. I’ve had much the same idea. Where does it lead us?”

  “I don’t think Dunham was the man Tenney saw.”

  “That’s a guess.”

  “Not entirely. There were two others up and about that same night.”

  Gilette’s glance moved.

  “True,” he said. “Fabyan and you.” He took a breath and the impatience was working on him again. “But unfortunately you’ve offered nothing in the way of evidence or proof. Do you have any?”

  “On the Tenney thing, yes.” Ward stood up, feeling now a body stiffness as the tension began to build inside him. He took a step towards Gilette, one hand in his pocket, then stopped to glance at Osborne. “Do you have the time, Len?”

  Osborne started to lift his wrist, stopped, his arm in midair.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Must have forgotten to put it on.”

  “You forgot this afternoon.”

  “Did I?”

  “You wear a wrist watch because I saw the white mark on your arm that first afternoon when we went swimming. This afternoon, coming in on horseback, you asked me what time it was. You wouldn’t have done so if you had been wearing it.… Something wrong with it?”

  Osborne shrugged and his teeth flashed in a grin. “As a matter of fact, there is.”

  “Not with the watch, Len. Just the strap.” Ward moved on to Gilette. “When I said there were two others up and about the night MacQuade was killed I was excluding myself. Len was up too.”

  “I was in bed.”

  Ward ignored him. He took the thin, stirruplike bit of metal from his pocket. He gave it to Gilette and then produced Osborne’s wrist watch.

  “I let Len come downstairs first tonight after we had dressed,” he said. “I went to his room and found the watch in a chest of drawers.”