by Craig Rice
She wished she had a date. She wished she was on her way downtown to have a hair-do, a facial, and a manicure. A new dress to wear, and someone ringing the doorbell. She wished she was twenty again. She strolled on down the garden path. “You’ve got a date,” she reminded herself, “with page 245. And you’d better get to it.”
Maybe the next line shouldn’t be There was a frightened gasp from the white-faced girl. Oh, no. Much better, The police lieutenant turned white and gasped. Yes, that was right. She began saying it out loud, as she walked. The police lieutenant turned white and gasped. “I don’t understand it,” he gulped. “Of course you don’t,” Clark Cameron said coldly. “No policeman ever understands anything.” No, that wasn’t right, that last line. It was too long. It wasn’t punchy. She tried a few others, murmuring them. “Of course you don’t. All cops are dopes.” She liked that, and said it again. “All cops are dopes”
“I beg your pardon?” Police Lieutenant Bill Smith said, stepping from behind a bush. “What did you say about cops?”
“I said—” With a shock Marian came back from page 245. She glared at him. “What are you doing in my garden?”
“I’m not in your garden,” he said mildly. “You’re trespassing on property which is temporarily under police jurisdiction. There’s been a murder here, remember?”
She remembered. She pulled the rose quilted house coat tighter around her. She said, “I’m very sorry,” turned, and stalked up the garden path.
“Wait,” Bill Smith said. “Wait, Mrs. Carstairs—”
She turned the corner around the evergreen hedge, and didn’t look back.
What would Clark Cameron do in a case like this? There had been a murder, and a thoroughly obnoxious—though handsome—police lieutenant was in charge. Of course, if Clark Cameron was a woman—
Marian Carstairs sniffed indignantly, and went a little faster up the walk. Back to page 245, she told herself. Clark Cameron rose from examining the still form—
There was a sudden rustling in the bushes beside the path. Marian Carstairs stiffened with terror. There had been a murder, and there was a murderer loose. If anything happened to her, who would look after the three young Carstairs? She opened her mouth to scream, but she was too scared to scream. Maybe Flora Sanford’s murderer was hiding there in the bushes, and thought she’d seen him. There would be a shot, or a sudden blow, and then, who would look after Dinah, and April, and Archie? She stood there, paralyzed.
“Mrs. Carstairs!” It was a hoarse whisper. Marian turned her head; a haggard, terror-stricken, unshaven face looked out at her from the leaves. A face that had once been handsome, and virile, and admired; that now was scratched and bloody, and dirt-streaked. “For the love of heaven,” the hoarse whisper said, “don’t call the police. Mrs. Carstairs, you can’t believe I murdered my wife!”
It was Wallie Sanford. The man police in three states were searching for. The murderer. She could cry out, and the police would come and get him. There would be newspaper headlines, MYSTERY WRITER CAPTURES KILLER. It would sell a lot of books. But still—
“Believe me,” Wallie Sanford gasped. “Believe me.”
There were footsteps on the gravel at the bend of the garden path. Heavy footsteps. They were coming nearer.
“Run up through the bushes,” Marian Carstairs whispered. “Run! I’ll keep them from following you.”
Wallie Sanford disappeared. The rustling in the bushes died away. The footsteps came closer. Then Marian Carstairs did scream, and loud. Loud and shrill.
Police Lieutenant Bill Smith was at her side in two bounds. He grabbed her arms and said, “What frightened you?”
“It was a mouse,” Marian gasped. “There. On the path.”
He said, “Oh.” There was sudden relief in his voice. “I was afraid—” He gulped. “Look. Mrs. Carstairs. Would you—I mean, will you”—he still hung on to her arm—“I’d like to talk to you. Won’t you—dinner—or lunch—or a movie—or, something?”
She looked at him. She said, “I wouldn’t dream of it. And take your hand off my arm, please.”
He looked at her. He said, “I beg your pardon,” turned stiffly, and walked down the path.
Marian Carstairs ran into the house and upstairs to her room. For the first time in ten years, she was afraid she was going to cry.
Wallie Sanford. Hunted. Possibly a murderer. She should have turned him over to the police. But no, not with that look on his face.
A date. She’d been asked for a date. For the first time in—how many years?
She sat down on the bench in front of her dressing table, breathless, and looked in the mirror. Rose-flowered house coat, bright scarf, pink cheeks, bright eyes. “Why,” she told the mirror, “I’m still pretty!” Suddenly she reached for her working slacks, and said to the mirror, “Nonsense!” Back to page 245. Paragraph two. Line three. Right after Clark Cameron, et cetera … “This man was murdered. Like all the others.”
She began to type, slowly. The handsome police lieutenant gasped. No. that was wrong. Police lieutenants didn’t gasp. “I think you’re mistaken, Mr. Cameron,” the handsome police lieutenant said. That wasn’t right, either. Clark Cameron couldn’t make mistakes. She crossed that out, too. Better start a new paragraph.
The handsome police lieutenant said—
“Oh,” Marian Carstairs said, “Oh—nonsense!”
She xx-ed the whole thing out, and began another new paragraph, typing furiously. “All cops are dopes.”
Chapter Four
“G’wan, you kids, beat it,” Sergeant O’Hare said. “Beat it, I told you.”
“The nerve of him,” April said coolly to Dinah. “Hasn’t he ever heard about laws against trespassing?” Archie giggled, loud.
Sergeant O’Hare blushed, retreated two feet from the Carstairs lawn to the Sanford lawn, and repeated, louder, “G’wan, I said. Beat it.”
“Why?” Dinah said calmly. “We live here.”
“You live in that house,” the sergeant said. “That house, there. Beat it, now.”
“We live in the front yard, too,” April said.
“We live everywhere,” Archie squealed, jumping up and down. “Everywhere we are.”
Dinah added, “And it’s our front yard.”
“I mean,” Sergeant O’Hare said. He gulped. “I mean, beat it away from that there hedge.”
“We like that there hedge,” April informed him.
Archie, who’d stepped back a few feet, discharged his slingshot into that there hedge. The sergeant jumped, and yelped. “I-said-get-outa-here!” he bellowed. His face turned purple.
“Oh, all right,” Dinah said. “If you’re going to act that way about it.”
The three young Carstairs strolled away from the garden gate, without one backward glance.
“We’re going to have trouble with him,” Dinah said gloomily.
“That’s what you think,” April said, serene and unruffled. “He’s going to have trouble with us.” She walked casually up the lawn for a moment or two, until she was sure Sergeant O’Hare had observed the dignified departure. Then she said, “C’mon, kids, there’s a gate through the kitchen garden.”
The gate through the kitchen garden was watched by a bored young uniformed cop. He shook his head and said, “Uh-uh. Can’t come in here.”
Dinah looked at him coldly for a minute before she said, “We promised Mrs. Sanford to weed out her turnips.”
“Scram, youse.” the policeman said pleasantly. “Mrs. Sanford don’t care about them turnips. Mrs. Sanford’s been murdered. See?”
“We see,” April said, raising one eyebrow. “Imagine!” She looked slightly offended. “Murdered! Frightfully bad taste, you know.” She raised the other eyebrow at Dinah and Archie and said, “Shall we go now?”
The young policeman looked after them for a long, long minute, his pink face puzzled.
“They’ve got the whole place guarded,” Dinah said unhappily. “Even the garbage ga
te.”
The three young Carstairs paused to consider the problem. “We’ve got to get in and search, somehow,” April said.
“Search for what?” Archie demanded. “Hey! For what?”
“How do we know?” Dinah told him crossly. “We just search.”
“Oh, boney,” Archie said. “For what, for what, for what?”
“Archie,” April said severely, “this is the scene of a crime. The first thing the detective does when there’s been a crime is to search the scene of it. We’re the detectives. So, we’ve got to search.”
“Only,” Dinah added, “the police are all around the place. See?”
Archie looked about him, and mentally verified Dinah’s statement. “Okay, Loonie-Lou,” he said. “Why dontcha go up the front driveway? Dopey, dopey, dopey!”
April and Dinah looked at each other. “We might try,” April said.
“Y’h, y’h, y’h, y’h,” Archie said.
“Shut up, pop-brain,” April said pleasantly, “before the posse comes over the hill.”
She raced ahead and led the way down toward the driveway, Archie yelping behind her. He caught up with her just at the turn into the front gate.
“Hey,” Archie yelled. “Hey, hey, hey. What’s a posse?”
April paused and looked scornful. “A posse,” she said, “is the plural of poss. You’ve been to the movies.” She struck an attitude, and quoted, “Take the short cut over the hill and head them off at the poss.”
Dinah had caught up by then, and she added, “A posse is a little cat with a foreign accent.”
April whistled and said, “Here, poss-ee, poss-ee, poss-ee.”
“Oh, boney,” Archie said, enraged. “Oh, foo!”
“Shut up,” April said. “You ask too many questions.”
Archie plumped himself down on the curbstone. He breathed, and wished he could have been breathing fire and brimstone. He said, “I—hate—girls!” He kicked his heels against the curbstone, and searched his mind for the utmost in profanity, finally exploding with, “Oh, shambles! Shambles!”
“For Pete’s sake,” Dinah said. “Both of you. Be quiet.”
“And come on,” April said.
She led the way up the driveway. There wasn’t a policeman, uniformed or otherwise, in sight. “May be a trap,” she whispered dramatically to Dinah. “We’d better duck through the hydrangea bushes. And walk quietly.”
As they reached the bushes, they spotted a familiar long gray convertible parked by the house, and two familiar figures standing beside it. They ducked, and fast. They moved closer, walking quietly. Once Dinah caught April’s arm. “Remember,” she whispered, “what Mother always says about eavesdropping?”
“This isn’t eavesdropping,” April whispered back. “This is detection. There’s a difference. And watch out for the brambles.”
They crept up, inch by inch, to within six feet of the convertible, and paused there, hidden by the foliage.
Polly Walker stood by the car. She had on a white linen dress, with bright embroidery around the throat. Her wide brimmed, red straw hat matched the embroidery. Her red gold curls tumbled down over the white shoulders of the dress. She looked extremely young, and completely terrified. Bill Smith was resting one foot on the running board, and one elbow on the window sill. He was trying to look coldly stern, and only managing to look sympathetic and perturbed.
“I tell you,” Polly Walker was saying, when they got within hearing distance, “I haven’t the faintest idea where he is. I haven’t heard from him, since—” Her voice broke off in a little gasp.
“Since when?” Police Lieutenant Bill Smith asked calmly. April and Dinah approved his tone and manner. Yes, just like Clark Cameron. Dinah whispered, “I wish Mother could watch this.”
“Since the day before yesterday.” Polly Walker’s lovely mouth opened, and then shut, hard. She drew a breath. Dinah suspected she was mentally counting ten. “Why did you ask me to come out here? Why are you asking all these silly questions?”
“Because,” Bill Smith said, “you told us, yesterday, that you hadn’t met Wallie Sanford. That you only knew Mrs. Sanford, who’d asked you out to tea.” He took his foot off the running board and stood up very straight. “But since you’ve just admitted you saw Wallie Sanford day before yesterday—” He paused. Polly Walker stood straight as a board, her face white. “When did you first meet Mrs. Sanford?”
“I—” Polly Walker’s jaw set. “I don’t consider that any of your concern.”
April gripped Dinah’s hand. “Remember when she said that line in Strange Meeting?”
Police Lieutenant Bill Smith drew himself up. He looked thoroughly unhappy. “Isn’t it true, Miss Walker,” he said, “that you had never met Mrs. Sanford in your life? That you were introduced to Wallace Sanford at a cocktail party on January 16th of this year? That you are known to have seen him frequently since that date, and that Mrs. Sanford, having learned of this—”
“Oh—no!” Polly Walker said. “That wasn’t it. No, it wasn’t that way at all.” She bit her lip, straightened her shoulders. “I shan’t even attempt to answer your absurd accusations. This is hardly the place for a third degree. If you have any further questions to ask, you may ask them of my lawyers.” She opened the door of the convertible.
April suppressed a cheer. Dinah whispered, “That’s straight out of her last picture. Remember, we saw it at the Bijou.”
This time April said, “Shushup!”
Polly Walker slammed the door shut, and started the motor. Bill Smith grabbed the edge of the door, and said, “Now, you wait—”
“Am I under arrest?” Polly Walker demanded coldly. “Because if I’m not, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m dated up to commit a few more murders this afternoon, and I’m behind schedule already.”
She backed the car down the driveway in a rush that sent leaves scattering every which way. Lieutenant Smith stared after her for a moment. Then he turned and walked slowly back toward the Sanford villa.
“That line, she made up herself,” April breathed exultantly. “Is he a dope!”
“Don’t talk that way about your future stepfather,” Dinah snapped. “And get going. We might be able to catch up with her down by the stoplight. Move!”
They shoved through the bushes, ran down the driveway, and raced like rabbits along the road. Ahead of them, the pale-gray convertible slowed up at a turn to let a station wagon drive past. They reached the turn and saw that it had paused by the stoplight. They dived on down the hill. “We’ll never make it,” April gasped, breathless. “The light—”
The light changed, but the car didn’t move. It stood there, one wheel shoved crazily against the curb. A passing car honked indignantly, and then drove slowly around. The light began to change again. The car still didn’t move.
“She’s got to be all right,” April said. She paused and stared at the car. “She’s practically all the witness there is. We’ve got to ask questions—”
There was a white-clad figure sitting bolt upright at the wheel. It might have been molded out of snow.
“What questions?” Dinah demanded. “She’s a movie star. She’s got lawyers. If she wouldn’t answer questions for the police, what makes you think—Oh, April!”
The figure of snow melted, suddenly. The white-clad shoulders shook.
Dinah ran forward. She put a quick, impulsive arm around Polly Walker’s shoulders. Polly Walker buried her face against Dinah and sobbed, loud. She didn’t seem like a movie star; she seemed like a scared and unhappy little girl. Dinah patted her head, the way she patted Archie’s on those rare occasions when the sorrows of life became too much for him. She murmured, “Don’t cry. We’ll fix everything.”
“Oh,” Polly Walker wailed. “Oh, Cleve—Cleve! I didn’t mean—” She choked. She didn’t cry gracefully and exquisitely, as she had in Strange Meeting. Her face got red, her hair came loose, her tears streamed, and she sniffed, loudly and unbeautifully. “Wally!” sh
e sobbed. “He didn’t do it. It wasn’t necessary. He didn’t know. I hate him. But he didn’t do it. Oh, these fools!”
“There, there,” Dinah said, aimlessly and consolingly. Polly Walker sat upright, reached in the dashboard compartment for a handkerchief, and blew her nose. “And I believed him,” she gasped.
April hopped up on the running board. “Tell us. Who’s Cleve?”
“He’s my—I mean, he was my—” She looked up at them, her face tearstained, her lovely eyes wet. “Well! If it isn’t my little friends!”
“Friends is the word,” Dinah said solemnly.
“You do turn up at the darnedest times,” Polly Walker murmured. She dabbed at her face with a handkerchief.
“And with the darnedest questions,” April said coldly. “You’d better powder that map, sap.”
Polly Walker reached automatically for her compact. She made one ineffectual stab at her nose with it. “You’re such nice kids. If I ever have—I mean, I wish—”
April looked at her critically. “The powder’s streaking. Maybe you’d better wash that pan, fran’. And confide in us. Is Mr. Sanford your”—she searched for a word—“gentleman friend?”
It took Polly Walker a moment or two to interpret that. Then she dropped the compact in her lap and began to laugh. “Gosh,” she said. “Gosh, no. No, of course not. Whatever—”
“Then why,” April said relentlessly, “did he murder his wife?”
“Because,” Polly Walker said. “Because of the letter—” She broke off and stared at them. “What are you kids talking about?”
“Would it interest you to know,” April said, “that we know he couldn’t have murdered his wife. Because he got off the train at 4:47. We heard the shots. At 4:30.”
Polly Walker stared at them, her mouth open.
“That’s right,” Dinah said helpfully. “April had just gone to look at the clock—”
“Let’s not get into that potato routine again,” April said hastily. Then, to Polly Walker, “You see, you haven’t a thing to worry about. So don’t look so glum, chum.”
“But it couldn’t have been,” Polly Walker said helplessly. “Because at a quarter to five I was—I—”