The Clay Hand

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  CHICAGO MOVEMENTS COFFEE EARLY DECEMBER. FREQUENTED CLARK STREET AND CHICAGO AVENUE TAVERN SEVERAL TIMES. WIFE WITH HIM LAST OCCASION. HAVE OPERATIVE ON IT. WILL INSTRUCT FURTHER. BANK WITHDRAWAL FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS DECEMBER FIFTH. NOT USED FOR TRANSPORTATION. TRANSPORTATION PAID TRAVEL AGENCY BY CHECK.

  Phil returned the telegram to him.

  “The wife up yet?” Fields asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. I’d like to get to her before she gets her mask on. What’s Clark Street like?”

  “In that section it’s pretty rough, as I remember it.”

  Mrs. O’Grady met them at the kitchen door. “Are you carting trouble here this hour of the morning, Sam Fields?”

  “I want to talk to Mrs. Coffee. I’d thank you to call her and give me a seat in your house till she comes down.”

  “You can sit or lie down, and call her yourself.”

  It was Phil who went to the stairs and called up to Margaret. He did not mention that Fields was waiting. It was ten minutes before she came down, as long a ten minutes as he could remember. Fields sat at the table as though he were asleep. The widow sat on a stool watching him. There was an occasional crackle of fire in the kitchen range, and the floor above creaked under Margaret’s footsteps.

  When she came, her face was carefully made up, and not a strand of the ash blonde hair was out of place. But for all her patience with the mask, as Fields called it, the tiny lines had begun to tighten on her. A stranger, meeting her, and knowing only the story of her husband’s death, would say the full impact of her loss was coming home to her now, two days after the funeral. And, Phil thought, the full impact of something was hitting her. For all her grace and beauty, she suffered what must have been most painful to her: Dick had left her, and if nothing else, he had done that before his death.

  “Milady’s looking pert this morning,” the widow said. “Isn’t she, Philip?”

  He looked from one to the other of them without speaking.

  “I feel wretched,” Margaret said.

  “It’s the lumpy mattress,” said the old lady. “She’s as tender as a princess sleeping on a pea.”

  Fields cleared his throat. Margaret went to the table and sat down beside him. “More questions?”

  There was no ceremony left in Fields. “I got word from Chicago this morning your husband was seen a lot in a pretty low tavern there. What can you tell me about it?”

  Margaret’s face blanched. She lifted her head a little. “I knew about it.”

  “What did you know about it?”

  “I knew he was going to a cheap rotten place. I knew he was seeking the company of the dregs—the derelicts and dope fiends, whores and worse than whores.”

  The tautness of her face did indeed make a mask of it. Phil stifled the anger he felt choking him.

  “Were you ever there with him?” Fields asked.

  “I followed him once. I wanted to salvage something of the person I once knew.”

  “My information says you went with him,” the sheriff said. “The Chicago police have a way of being exact when they say something. If you followed him there, they’d of said that.”

  “All right. I went with him. He made me go. He didn’t want to go to hell alone, he said. He was all rotten.”

  “No,” Phil said. “I don’t believe it. If you swore it before God and all his angels I wouldn’t believe it. If Dick was there he had a reason for being there, but it wasn’t to go to hell himself or to take you there.”

  “You’re simon pure, aren’t you, Phil? There’s no evil in the world where anyone you love is concerned. A saint can do no wrong. You wouldn’t believe in a Magdalene if the Lord Himself came and told you about her.”

  “I would if you told me about her, Margaret,” he said quietly.

  The old lady chuckled. This was the sport she liked.

  “Mrs. Coffee,” Fields persisted. “Suppose you tell us just what your husband did in this Clark Street place.”

  Mrs. O’Grady wagged her head. “Tell him the whole story, dear.”

  Phil looked at her. Had she and Margaret gone over it together? The old woman sat, her head nodding, for all the world like Madame LaFarge watching the mobs of Paris.

  A roistering sailor could not have given a more lascivious account of his brawling than Margaret unfolded for them.

  Fields got up stiffly at the end of it. “That would take a lot of money, wouldn’t it? That would account for him taking fifteen hundred dollars out of the bank, December fifth?”

  Margaret’s eyes widened, and then filled with tears. The only comfort offered her was the boney caress of the widow’s hand scratching her tender flesh.

  Chapter 32

  FIELDS WENT DOWN THE steps quickly, his mouth toughened with anger. He slammed the door of the car, and for the first time Phil had to hurry to keep up with him.

  “Bitches,” Fields said between his teeth. “If they wasn’t getting so much pleasure out of it…” He shook his head. “Can I filch a cigaret?”

  Phil gave him one and lighted it for him. The sheriff took a couple of deep pulls. The gears screeched as he jolted the car into motion.

  They drove past the main tipple of the Number Three. There was not much activity. A few miners stood about, sullen, dejected. The few now willing to go to work, could not. The entire diggings had to be gone over and recertified. Fields drew the car up suddenly and got out. Lempke came to meet him. The men watched them glumly without even an answer to the sheriff’s greeting.

  Fields spoke a moment with Lempke, and returned to the car. “That section was dynamited.”

  “Was it planned for when we were down there?”

  “I don’t think so. It must of been set off with a fuse. If we was expected to get it, they’d have waited. It was just meant to do what it did—destroy anything down there that might of involved someone.”

  “Why wait that long if it wasn’t meant for us?”

  “Because it wasn’t ready till yesterday afternoon, and then they didn’t want to be seen leaving. And there was just one person to see them before we got there.”

  “Rebecca Glasgow.”

  “That’s right. We saw her in the back yard when we drove by, going out there. In other words, if we’d of been five or ten minutes later getting there, we’d of seen who it was. After setting the fuse, they wouldn’t dare stay in there.”

  He swung the car around and drove past the Number Two Colliery. The men were down there, but at the tipple several of the miners from Number Three were standing about. Billy Riordon was there, looking hung over, just about sick enough to talk about it.

  “Drop me off here, Sheriff,” Phil said. “There’s one of those fellows I think I can make friends with.”

  “Go to it, lad. We can sure use a few of them right now.”

  Fields drove on, and Phil crossed to where Riordon was examining his shoe tops. “You look like you were poisoned last night.”

  “I feel like it. My stomach’s like the inside of a churn.”

  “Was the stuff bootleg?”

  “I’ve never the sense to question anything as long as it comes out of a bottle.”

  “You might know what Whelan gave you before.”

  “He’s give me nothing but a belly-ache.”

  “Did you notice he wasn’t drinking it himself?”

  Riordon rubbed the two days’ stubble on his chin. “He was drunk though,” he said with some doubt.

  “He was not drunk. He was deliberately feeding the stuff to you.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Spooning us poison with one hand, and muddying our minds with the other. The dirty little wart.”

  “Did you ever see him sell any of that liquor?”

  “No I didn’t, and that’s the truth. It’s just that he shows up with a quantity whenever there’s trouble.”

  “Come down to the restaurant with me and have some black coffee
,” Phil said.

  Riordon sidled away from him. “Thank you, but I’d as leave not be seen with you.”

  “Look,” Phil said. “I’m not trying to pump you. A friend of mine was killed. All I want to know is how it happened. I’ve nothing to gain with your going back to work or staying away from it. But somebody here in Winston is trying to make dupes of all of us. Do you think Fields is working against you?”

  “The law’s always been a little partial to the operators down here. We’ve a notion they want to close Number Three entirely.”

  “Fields had the same notion. He was in the mines himself, man.”

  “Aye, that’s the truth. And I’ve never heard a word said against him by the boys till this.”

  “Then pull with him and not against him. Give him a chance.”

  “Och, my head’s killing me. Don’t be crowding it with any more confusions.”

  “Come down, then, and have coffee with me.”

  “Maybe I will. My old lady makes tea you could walk on, but a spoon of sugar would color her coffee.”

  They walked into the town together, and here and there along the way their companionship was rewarded with a civil word from the townspeople. Riordon entered the restaurant hesitantly, and rubbed his hands off on his coat before sliding into the booth. He grinned foolishly. “You know, the last time I was in here, the old lady was complaining I never took her no place, and her boiling beef and potatoes from one day to the next. So we got dressed up of a night and come down here. And do you know the only thing they had on the bill o’ fare we could eat?”

  “Boiled beef and potatoes,” Phil said.

  “Aye, and bull’s beef at that.”

  Randy Nichols came in before they were through breakfast. Riordon had recovered his appetite with the smell of ham and eggs. “You better get up to the mortuary, McGovern,” Nichols said. “The sheriff’s looking for you.”

  Phil slid out of the booth and paid the check at the counter.

  “If you’ll come round for supper one of these nights,” Riordon said, “I’ll be pleased to return your hospitality.”

  Chapter 33

  FIELDS WAS ROCKING BACK and forth in the swivel chair when Phil arrived. He swung around at the sound of his footsteps. “I got a communication here I think’ll interest you. It’s from the Adjutant General’s office, Washington, D. C. The army serial number Glasgow has on his application with the railway company’s a phony. They have no record of him.”

  “That means his whole record is phony then,” Phil said slowly. “It means he falsified an army discharge to get a job with the railroad.”

  “If it don’t mean that, it means he had to account for several years in his life some other way than he spent them. Let’s go, lad. We may come out of this on our feet yet.”

  As they went to the car Phil told him about Riordon.

  “That’s a real good sign,” Fields said. “So is that sun shining up there.”

  It was the first really bright day Phil had seen since coming to Winston. Passing down the main street, they saw the hardware store proprietor setting some of his wares on the street—gardening implements and a seed display. The barber had a bucket of water, and was washing the shop window. Both of them looked up and nodded as Fields waved to them. “What a little sunshine’ll do to a dirty world,” he said.

  Rebecca Glasgow was driving the goats out of the yard when they reached the house. Fields touched the car horn, and motioned her back. He and Phil waited, and went into the house with her. The old man came into the kitchen wearing a smock. He took it off.

  Fields half-sat on the kitchen table. “Glasgow at work?”

  “He is.”

  “When’s he due home?”

  “About five,” Rebecca said. “He was put on a special run this morning.”

  Fields nodded and looked at his watch. “The two of you sit down a minute, and you, McGovern. Now, I’m going to have to be real personal, Mrs. Glasgow. You had a talk yesterday with McGovern. I think we know why you married Glasgow. But what we got to find out now is why he married you. How long did you know him?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “Where did you first meet him?”

  “Out in the hills, too. Isn’t that funny?”

  “Not specially,” Fields said. “What was he doing there? He don’t strike me as the kind to be enjoying nature.”

  “Taking a short cut into town from his work.”

  “Do you remember how he acted the first time he saw Coffee?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw them together.”

  Fields looked from her to her father. “Are you saying that out of all the times Coffee was in this house, they never met here?”

  “I don’t remember their having met here,” the old man said.

  “You heard him testify to meeting Coffee, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I took for granted…”

  Fields cut him off. “You like to take a lot of things for granted, Mr. Clauson. Didn’t it strike you as queer they didn’t cross here with Coffee coming so often?”

  “Nothing that Norman does strikes me as strange.”

  “Not even marrying your daughter?”

  With effort the old man bestirred himself. “Don’t be cruel, sir.”

  “I’m being kinder than I am cruel. A man that’s got some decency—maybe some music in him—I don’t know a better way to put it—maybe a man like Coffee would see the fine lady your daughter is. But a man like Glasgow takes a look at what a woman’s body’s like if he’s picking one to his own taste. If that’s cruel, I can’t help it. Death’s a lot crueler.”

  “No,” Rebecca said. “Death is kind. It’s peace.”

  “Death isn’t peace, ma’am, unless you’ve earned it.” He turned to the old magician. “Now, Mr. Clauson, I’m not going to say Coffee didn’t like visiting you, but did it ever occur to you that he was sitting here night after night waiting?”

  “It occurred to me. I often feared the scene between them when they met.”

  Phil remembered the mention in the notes of the candles starting up at a strange sound. Rebecca’s eyes were the candles…

  “Why did you fear their meeting?” Fields persisted.

  “Because I thought Richard was in love with my daughter.”

  Rebecca turned on him fiercely. “You poor, benign old jackass. All my life you’ve told me the people who should be in love with me—who were in love with me. Even now you can’t see I’m an ugly duckling that all the tenderness of spring won’t change into a swan.”

  The old man’s chin quivered. “I see my only child, the child of her mother, as lovely a woman as ever walked the earth.”

  Rebecca stumbled from the chair and went to the window, her long wracked back more eloquent than her face. The chair cut into Phil’s hands where he clutched it. He had never wanted so much to comfort pain and been so helpless.

  Fields rubbed his forehead with his fingers, as though to ease a headache. “Mr. Clauson, the truth now about that illusion. You told me last night you gave it to Coffee. Why did you tell me that?”

  “Because I thought Rebecca had taken it. It is better that the man contrive the circumstances of love.”

  Rebecca turned from the window, her whole face working. “Oh my God, Papa. How romantic! How fiendishly, disgustingly romantic.” She crossed the room to him. “Do you know something, Papa? I’m the healthy one. It’s you that’s ill. It’s this whole narrow town—and all people who would blight the lives of others by pairing them off like animals in season. That’s what Richard Coffee tried to tell me. He tried to convince me that Norman was no good. And I wouldn’t listen. It hurt so much when I knew he loved his wife. Pride was all I had. I gloried in telling him my devotion to my husband, the husband I despised.” She turned to Fields. “Why did he want Norman? I’m sure he did now. Only he waited because he thought I loved him. What stupid, vain folly!”

  “I don’t know that,” Fields said. “Now there
’s something I’ve got to get straight—that floating doll, the woman with green wings as the boy called it—neither one of you took it out of the house?” They had not.

  “It’s going to be hard telling how much damage that lie of yours did last night, Mr. Clauson. The truth’s a lot better protection for an innocent person than a lie. I think we can be pretty sure Glasgow was watching here more often than he was at home. And Coffee was watching for him. All night sometimes.”

  Fields got up, and moved back and forth in the room. He spoke as much to put his own thoughts in order as to speak to them. “…That room was marked. If Coffee did it, somebody had to see him doing it to know. If the doll was used to lure Laughlin in, it was taken out after he was dead, because the mine people didn’t find it. Wherever it was hidden, Coffee found it. He knew then it was murder. If it was Glasgow did it, we got to find out why he wanted Laughlin dead.”

  “On account of the still?” Phil asked.

  Fields looked at the Clausons. They suggested nothing.

  “He wasn’t here yesterday when that place was dynamited,” Fields said then. “We got to look further.”

  “And some place we have to figure Margaret Coffee in it,” Phil said.

  “That’s a fact. I’ll tell you something, McGovern, the way she’s acted toward you, you’re just too mild a man for her. That kind’s got to have the devil in a top hat—or the tough guy who’ll beat her down to silk. I don’t think Coffee was her kind either.”

  “He wasn’t,” Rebecca said then. “One of the last things Dick said to me: ‘We’re the victims of our own infirmities, my dear,’ he said, and he held my hand a moment. That was as close a touch as there ever was between us. I could not bear the sight of him again. I forbade him the house, and he went out with Papa that night. ‘I worship Margaret,’ he told me, ‘and she is no good, Rebecca. No good at all. Who am I to dissuade you from your love of him?’”

  Fields watched her a moment, and then looked at Phil. “I’d say Glasgow might be her speed.”