by Craig Rice
“The maid’s out, Lieutenant,” the big man said. “Nobody in the house. Could have been prowlers.”
“Possibly,” the police lieutenant said. The tone of his voice made it plain he didn’t think it was. “You notify the medical examiner, O’Hare. Then try to locate her husband.”
“Okay,” O’Hare said. He went back into the house.
“Now, Miss Walker.” He looked at her thoughtfully, offered her a cigarette and a light. “I know this has been a shock. I’m sorry to bother you with questions right now. But—” He smiled, and his face became disarmingly friendly. “Maybe I’d better introduce myself. I’m Lieutenant Smith of the Homicide Bureau.”
Dinah interrupted him with a little gasp. “Oh! What’s your first name?”
He glanced at her, slightly annoyed. “Bill.” Before he could turn back to Polly Walker, Dinah had gasped again, louder. “Why?” he demanded. “What of it?”
“It’s such a coincidence!” Dinah said, excitement in her voice.
“My being named Smith? There’s millions of people named Smith.”
“Yes,” Dinah said. “But Bill Smith!”
“All right. There’s probably millions of people named Bill Smith, too. What’s a coincidence about that?”
Dinah fairly danced up and down. “You’re a detective. Mother has a character—” She paused. “Oh, never mind.”
He scowled at her. “Listen kid, I’ve got work to do here. I haven’t time to listen to a lot of double talk. Run along now. Beat it.”
“I’m sorry,” Dinah said contritely. “I didn’t mean to bother you. Mr. Smith, are you married?”
“No,” he snapped. He opened and shut his mouth two or three times, without making a sound. “Look here. Go on home. Scram. Vamoose. Get the—get out of here.”
Not one of the three young Carstairs moved as much as an inch.
Sergeant O’Hare reappeared. “Svenson already called the medical examiner,” he reported. “And Mr. Sanford left his office a while ago; he oughta be home soon.” He looked from his superior to the three young Carstairs and said, “Never mind, I’ll handle ’em. I raised nine kids of my own.” He strode up and struck a threatening pose. “What do you think you’re doing here?” he roared.
“Don’t be rude,” April said coldly. She raised herself to a good five foot one, and looked him squarely in the eye. “We came here,” she said with magnificent dignity, “because we heard the shots.”
Lieutenant Smith and Sergeant O’Hare looked at each other for a long moment. Then the lieutenant said, very gently, “Are you sure they were shots—not backfire?”
April just sniffed, and said nothing.
“I don’t suppose,” Sergeant O’Hare said, with elaborate casualness, “you happen to know what time it was when you heard the shots?”
“Of course we do,” April said. “I’d just gone in to look at the minute-meter to see if it was time to put the potatoes on. We heard the shots. Somebody had been killed.” Suddenly her voice rose to a scream. “Killed!”
She sank into a limp little heap on the grass, screaming and sobbing. Dinah flung herself down on her knees. “April!”
Polly Walker jumped up from the running board and said, “Get a doctor!”
Police Lieutenant Smith turned pale and said, “What’s the matter with her?”
Dinah felt a good hard pinch from the still screaming April. She looked up apologetically. “It’s the shock. She isn’t very strong.”
“Get a doctor,” Polly Walker repeated. “The poor child—”
Dinah leaned close and heard one fiercely whispered word, “Home!” She looked up again. “I’d better take her home. She—she might have a fit.”
Archie got into the spirit of the occasion and added, “When she has fits, she breaks things.”
“I’ll carry her,” Bill Smith volunteered.
Dinah caught a signal from April’s eyes that said “No!”
“She can walk all right,” Dinah said. “In fact, it’ll be good for her.” She pulled April to her feet and held her with one arm. April continued to sob loudly. “We’ll take her home,” Dinah said. “Mother’ll know what to do.”
“Mamma!” April wailed. “I want my mamma!”
“That’s the right idea,” Lieutenant Smith said, wiping his brow. “Take her home to her mother.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “I’ll come over and talk to you later.” April’s moans were fading in the distance by the time he said sympathetically, “The poor little kid!”
Sergeant O’Hare looked at him coldly. “I’ve raised nine kids of my own,” he said again, “and that was the phoniest fit of hysterics I ever saw outside of a courtroom.”
Out of sight and hearing of the Sanford villa, April paused and drew a long breath. “Remind me,” she said, “to take back everything I’ve said about the Junior Drama teacher.”
“Remind yourself to explain what that was all about,” Dinah said sternly.
Archie just looked on, goggle-eyed.
“Don’t be moronic,” April said. “We’re the important witnesses. We can fix the exact time of the crime. But we don’t want to fix it yet. Because we might want to give somebody an alibi.”
Dinah said, “Oh!” and then, “Who?”
“We don’t know yet,” April said. “That’s why we had to stall for time.”
“Tell me, tell me, tell me,” Archie yelled. He hopped up and down with impatience. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will,” April said.
The three stood for a minute just inside the front door, looking at each other and thinking. The typewriter was still going hard upstairs.
“We’ll manage it somehow,” April said.
A thoughtful look came into Dinah’s brown eyes. “I’m going to cook dinner myself tonight,” she murmured. “So Mother won’t have to cut work. I’m going to bake the slice of ham in a ginger-ale sauce and make candied sweet potatoes and mashed white potatoes, and a big salad with Roquefort dressing, and hot corn muffins.”
“You do know how to make corn muffins,” Archie said.
“We’ve got a cookbook,” Dinah said. “And I can read. Cream pie, too. She drools for it.” She nodded, slowly. “You two had better come on out in the kitchen so we can talk,” she finished, “because we have some other plans to make. Important ones.”
Chapter Two
Marian Carstairs, alias, at the moment, J. J. Lane, looked around the dinner table and counted her blessings. Three of them, to be exact. She sighed happily.
There was a fresh lace cloth on the candlelit dinner table, and a bowl of yellow roses in the center. The ham was marvelously tender and delicately spiced, the sweet potatoes swam in a thick brown sirup, the corn muffins were scorching hot and light as thistledown. A highly successful experiment had been made in combining the salad.
April, the darling, had brought a glass of sherry upstairs before dinner and said such sweet, such appreciated things! “Mother, you look so much prettier in your blue house coat.” “Mother, let me fix your hair tonight.” “Mother, put some war paint on. We always like to see you looking schmoozable.” And finally, “Oh, Mother, let me put one of the pink roses in your mane!”
Did anyone, ever, have such wonderful children? She gazed at them rapturously. So good, so clever, and so beautiful! Marian smiled at them all, and reproached herself for having had even the faintest and most secret suspicion of them.
Still—there was something familiar about the perfection with which she found herself surrounded. It had happened before. From past experience, she was forced to suspect that some project was shortly to be discussed. She sighed again, not quite so happily. Such projects were usually commendable and understandable—but also, dangerous, expensive, something that interfered with Work—or, all three.
“O-kuk-a-yum?” Dinah said to April.
“A-bub-shush-o-lul-u-tut-e-lul-yum,” April said happily.
“Talk English,” Marian C
arstairs said, trying to look stern.
“That is English,” Archie yelped. “King Tut English. I can tell you what it means!” He beamed. “You take the first letter of every—”
“Shush-u-tut u-pup,” April said hastily, kicking him under the table. Archie subsided with a low grumble.
After dinner, when April carried coffee into the living room, and Archie solicitously provided cigarettes, matches, and an ash tray, Marian Carstairs had to conclude that her suspicions were undoubtedly correct. And yet—how could anyone suspect so innocent and wide-eyed a child as April?
“You look tired,” Dinah said sympathetically. “Wouldn’t you like a footstool?” She brought it without waiting for an answer.
“You hadn’t ought to work so hard,” Archie said.
“Really,” April added, “you ought to have more recreation. Especially, recreation that would help with your work.”
Marian stiffened. She remembered the time they had all taken lessons in deep-sea diving, for “atmosphere.” True, she had to concede, one of J. J. Lane’s most successful mysteries had come from the experience, with the corpse found inexplicably stabbed while in a diving suit. Still—
“Mother,” April said brightly, “if a lady was found murdered in her own living room, and if a few minutes later a socko motion-picture star drove up and said she’d been invited to tea, and somebody had heard two shots fired but the lady had only been shot once, and if her husband was missing and didn’t have any alibi, but if neither the husband or the motion-picture star had been the person who dood it,” she finally ran out of breath, gasped, and finished, “who would you say did?”
“For the love of Mike!” Marian said in a startled voice. “Where have you been reading such trash!”
Archie giggled and bounced up and down on the sofa. “It isn’t trash!” he said loudly. “And we didn’t read it. We saw it!”
“Archie!” Dinah said sternly. She turned to Mother and said, “It happened next door. This afternoon.”
Marian Carstairs’ eyes widened. Then she frowned. “Nonsense. I’m not going to fall for any of your tricks, not this time.”
“Honest,” April said. “It did happen. It’s all in tonight’s paper.” She turned to Archie. “Get the paper. It’s in the kitchen.”
“I always have to do everything,” Archie complained. He left.
“Mrs. Sanford!” Marian said. “That woman! Who did it?”
“That’s just it,” April said. “Nobody knows. The police have some loonie-louie theory, but they’re all wrong, as usual.”
They spread the paper on the coffee table and crowded around. There was a picture of the Sanford villa, pictures of Flora Sanford and of the missing Wallace Sanford. Under a large glamour picture of Polly Walker was the caption FILM STAR DISCOVERS BODY.
“She isn’t a star,” Marian said. “She’s just an actress.”
“She’s a star now,” April said wisely, “in the newspapers.”
Wallace Sanford had left his office unusually early and taken the suburban train for home, getting off the train at 4:47. No one had seen him since, and police were searching for him. Polly Walker had discovered the body and phoned the police at five o’clock. There was no indication of robbery or violence.
“Right in our own neighborhood!” Marian murmured.
The three young Carstairs brightened visibly. “Wouldn’t it be super,” April said to Dinah, “if Mother could get a lot of publicity for her books by finding the murderer and solving the mystery!”
“There’s no mystery,” Marian said. She folded up the newspaper. “The police will probably pick up Mr. Sanford without any trouble. They’re efficient enough in things of this kind.”
“But, Mother,” Dinah said, “Mr. Sanford didn’t do it.”
Marian looked at her blankly. “Who did?”
“That’s the mystery,” April said. She drew a long breath and plunged on. “Look. There’s always somebody the police suspect of the murder. Like poor Mr. Sanford. But it never turns out that he did it. Somebody else has to find out who really did. Not the police. Somebody like Don Drexel, in the J. J. Lane books.”
In one flash, Marian Carstairs understood everything, including the corn muffins and the roses on the table. At least, she thought so. “Now, listen,” she said, sternly and positively. “Perfectly obviously, Mr. Sanford shot his wife and he’s trying to get away. I don’t know that I blame him; she was a thoroughly horrid woman. But this is something for the police department to worry about, not me.” She looked at the clock and said, “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Mother,” Dinah said desperately. “Please! Just think of it. You don’t realize what a great opportunity this is.”
“I realize that I have to earn a living for all of us,” Marian Carstairs said. “Right now, I’ve got to deliver a book by a week from Friday, and it’s only two thirds done. I have no time to mix in other people’s affairs. And I wouldn’t, even if I did have time.”
Dinah felt discouraged, but not defeated. If her reasoning failed, they had one weapon left. April would weep. That almost invariably turned the trick. “Mother, think of the publicity. Think of all the books you’d sell. And then—”
The doorbell rang. Archie ran to open the door. It was Police Lieutenant Bill Smith, of the Homicide Squad, and Sergeant O’Hare.
April took a quick look at Mother. Yes, strictly wolf bait. The pink rose in her dark hair successfully hid the streak of gray. The make-up job was still intact. And the blue house coat was definitely tuzzy-wuzzy.
“Pardon the intrusion,” Bill Smith said. “We’re from the police.” He introduced himself and Sergeant O’Hare.
Marian Carstairs’ voice as she said “Yes?” indicated that it was not only an intrusion, but a nuisance. She didn’t say anything about coming in and sitting down, and she looked again at the clock.
Dinah sighed. When Mother got these working streaks! She flashed her best smile and said, “Won’t you have a chair?”
Police Lieutenant Smith said, “Thanks,” and sat down. He glanced admiringly around the room.
“Coffee?” April chirped.
Sergeant O’Hare said, “No, thanks,” before Bill Smith could open his mouth. “This is an official visit.”
Bill Smith cleared his throat and said, “There was a murder next door to you this afternoon. I’m in charge of the case.”
“I didn’t know anything about it until I read the newspaper a few minutes ago,” Marian said. “So I’m afraid I can’t help you. I was very busy this afternoon.” She added pointedly. “And I’m still very busy.”
“Mother writes mystery novels,” Dinah said in haste. “Super-mystery novels.”
“I never read them,” Bill Smith said coldly. “I don’t like them.”
Marian Carstairs’ eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “Just what is the matter with mystery novels?”
“They’re written by people who don’t know anything about crime,” he said, “and they give the public a lot of mistaken ideas about policemen.”
“Is that so!” Marian said icily. “Let me tell you, most of the policemen I’ve ever met—”
Archie sneezed loudly. Dinah said to Bill Smith, “Are you sure you won’t have some coffee?” April finished changing the subject by saying, “But about this particular murder—”
“This particular murder is the police department’s business, and not mine,” Marian said. “And if you’ll excuse me—”
“Your kids heard the shots,” O’Hare said. “They’re witnesses.”
“I’m sure they’ll be delighted to testify, when the time comes,” Marian told him. “In fact, I don’t think you could stop them.”
Police Lieutenant Smith cleared his throat for a second time, and reminded himself that a superior’s report had once referred to him as “having an ingratiating manner.” He smiled amiably. “Mrs. Carstairs,” he said, being as ingratiating as he could. “I know all this is very distressing to you
. But under the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll co-operate.”
“I’ll co-operate,” Marian said. “I’ll even buy them all new clothes to wear on the witness stand. And now, if that’s all—”
“You listen to me, lady,” O’Hare said. He’d never heard about being ingratiating. “These kids of yours seem to be the only people who can fix the time those shots were fired. We want to know.”
“We’d just looked at the clock,” April said quickly, looking appealingly at Mother, “to see if it was time to put on the potatoes.”
Marian Carstairs sighed. “All right. Tell them what time it was, and get it over with.”
Archie bounded off the back of a chair. “It was,” he began. He broke off with a squeal and began rubbing his arm where April had pinched him.
“I-lul-squared dud-o tut-hash-e tut-a-lul-kuk-i-nun-gug,” April said.
“O-kuk-a-yum,” Dinah said.
Marian Carstairs’ lips tightened. “Talk English,” she said.
April looked wistful and a little nervous. She walked over to Police Lieutenant Smith and her lovely eyes threatened to fill with tears. “I’d just looked at the clock to see if it was time to put on the potatoes,” she repeated. “They go in to bake at four-forty-five. It was exactly half-past four, so I went out on the porch again.”
Bill Smith and Sergeant O’Hare looked at each other, a bit bewildered.
“You never put on the potatoes,” Archie said. “Dinah puts on the potatoes.”
“I went to see if it was time for Dinah to put on the potatoes,” April said.
Dinah gave Archie a look, and he shut up fast.
Bill Smith smiled confidingly at April. “I want you to think about this, my dear. Murder is a terrible crime. A man or woman who takes another man or woman’s life must be punished. You understand that, don’t you?” April nodded, gazing at him trustingly. “This is a very serious affair,” he went on, beginning to feel sure of himself. “It’s just possible that knowing the time you heard those shots will help us find the person who did this terrible thing. You see how important it is for us to know exactly when it was, don’t you? I knew you would. You’re a good, sensible, smart little girl. Now tell me, exactly—”