Home Sweet Homicide

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Home Sweet Homicide Page 19

by Craig Rice


  Dinah gave him a Look, and said, “Come on!” She herded April and Archie into the kitchen, all but dragging Archie the last few feet. “For Pete’s sake!” Dinah whispered to him, “don’t you have any tact?”

  “Didn’t you ever hear about leaving people alone together?” April added.

  Archie looked mad, good and mad. He hissed, “But I wanted to hear what Mr. Bill Smith was going to say.”

  “Well, my gosh,” Dinah said. “Who doesn’t? And we will.” She motioned them to absolute silence, and led them back through the hall to the foot of the stairs. They crept a few feet up the stairs and sat there, very quiet. They were out of sight, but they could hear every word.

  There was Mother’s laugh, soft, musical, and friendly. Then her voice, saying, “That’s very nice of you, Mr. Smith. But I think you’re flattering me.”

  April and Dinah winked at each other.

  “Believe me, I meant every word,” Bill Smith said.

  Archie grinned widely.

  “Well, Mr. Smith—”

  “I wish you’d call me Bill. Mr. Smith sounds so formal, and you’re not really the formal type of woman.”

  There was Mother’s voice, laughing. “Okay—Bill. If I can do anything to help—”

  His voice now, suddenly serious. “Frankly, this is the situation, Mrs. Carstairs—”

  “I wish you’d call me Marian. Mrs. Carstairs sounds so formal.”

  This time both voices laughed.

  The three young Carstairs, around the corner, beamed happily, crossed their fingers, and listened.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I haven’t felt so happy in—ages, Marian Carstairs thought, sitting there stroking Inky and Stinky. The book done, and a few days’ rest ahead of me. Those wonderful, wonderful children, with their marvelous, marvelous presents. And now, just relaxing, playing with these precious kittens, and watching Bill Smith over there sipping his coffee.

  Funny, what a difference a man in an easy chair can make to a room. A tall, lean man in tweeds that needed pressing badly, sitting—no, sprawled—in the chair, his feet up on the hassock. Lighting his pipe now, a vile, aged pipe that was going to smell up the whole room. Looking for all the world as though he belonged there.

  Curtains or no curtains, it was good to smell a dirty old pipe again.

  Suddenly she realized he’d been speaking to her, and she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. She felt her cheeks growing warm. “A plugged nickel for your thoughts,” Bill Smith said.

  Oh, Lord! She was actually blushing! She could feel it. “I—” She didn’t know what to say. Here she was acting in the inane way Dinah acted when that awful Pete was around. “I was thinking—” Darn him! She caught her breath. “I’ve got to put flea powder for the kittens on my shopping list.”

  “Don’t use flea powder,” he said, “unless you brush it right out again. They lick it, and it makes them sick. Besides, how do you know those kittens have fleas?”

  “If they don’t now,” she said, “they will have. All kittens have fleas.”

  “I know,” he said, grinning. “That’s how you can tell they’re kittens. It’s a law of nature.” She looked so lovely in that blue, rustly dress, with the pink roses pinned on the shoulder, and her cheeks glowing. He wished with all his heart he had nerve enough to tell her so. “But I didn’t come here to talk about kittens.”

  Inky chose that moment to wake up, sit upright, and scratch vigorously behind his left ear before going back to sleep again. Marian Carstairs blessed him for the diversion, and said very casually, “No?”

  “Tell me,” he said, “what do you know about the Bette LeMoe kidnap-murder?”

  She stared at him, eyes wide. In the shelter of the staircase the three young Carstairs sat bolt upright, listening breathlessly.

  “Why?” Marian asked.

  “Because—” he paused. “Because I’m really stuck with this case. Really stuck. Marian, if you could help me—”

  There was another pause, and then her voice said, very low, “I’ll do anything I can.”

  Dinah and April looked at each other. “We might as well turn over the evidence to Mother and retire, right now,” April whispered.

  “What’s that?” Archie whispered.

  “Shush!” Dinah whispered.

  “But I didn’t hear what she said,” Archie grumbled under his breath.

  Dinah clapped a capable hand over his mouth and hissed, “Quiet! We’ll tell you later.”

  April nudged them both and whispered, “Listen!”

  “I thought I had this case all sewed up in a neat little bag,” Bill Smith said. “Jealous wife, philandering husband, ambitious little actress. Then a man named Frankie Riley is killed. Right in the neighborhood. Might be a coincidence, but the bullet that killed him came from the same gun that shot Mrs. Sanford.”

  Archie, on the staircase, glared at April and said, “I could of found out by myself, so there.”

  “Sssh,” April said, “bet’s off.”

  “And,” Bill Smith was saying, “his fingerprints were all over the downstairs of the Sanford house. And Frankie Riley was involved in the LeMoe case, though nothing could actually be proved on him. And there was a very smart reporter working on that case named Marian Ward, and a telegram to New York confirms my suspicion that Marian Ward is also known as Marian Carstairs.”

  Marian was silent for a moment, petting Stinky. “Yes,” she said. “I covered the case. And I’d met Bette LeMoe, once, at a party, before it happened.”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Yes. Go on. Please go on.”

  “She was—well, she was lovely. With a very young, and somehow—very gentle quality. And with a fine, and very appealing voice. I caught her act once.” Her voice grew sober. “Bette LeMoe wasn’t her right name, of course, but nobody knew what her right name was, and—afterward—nobody was able to find out. But she definitely did have a fine old family somewhere who felt that singing at the Starlight Theater was a fate worse than death. That sounds like a publicity gag, but it isn’t. Because there never were any publicity releases about it.” Marian frowned. “The family must have been fairly poor. Because she was like a little girl with her first dollar bill. Furs and perfumes and Hattie Carnegie gowns, and terrific excitement over suddenly being a star. There wasn’t a dime in her bank account when—it happened.”

  “Then who paid the ransom?” Bill Smith said quietly.

  “Nobody knows. The theater manager—a Mr. Abell—turned it over to the kidnapers, but it wasn’t his money, or the theater’s.”

  “He would know where it came from,” Bill Smith said.

  Marian Carstairs nodded. “Naturally.”

  Bill Smith took out a little black leather notebook. “Abell. What was his first name?”

  “Morris,” Marian said.

  He wrote that down, too. “Where can I locate him?” “

  You’ll have to ask a spiritualist about that,” she said. “Because he died, about two years ago. Not murder, either. Just peritonitis. I suspected it was murder, too, until I found out he’d waited too long to get his bad appendix to the hospital.”

  Bill Smith tucked the notebook into his pocket and said, “Too bad. You wrote some very nice stories about the case, by the way. I looked them up in one of the newspaper files.”

  Marian Carstairs lifted her head. “I wrote such nice stories that it cost me my job. I liked Bette LeMoe. I cried when I learned how the kidnapers sent her back—in a coffin. The police picked up Frankie Riley. Held him for questioning. Had to let him go. No evidence. They began to cool off about the case. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’d seen Bette LeMoe when she was alive.” Marian Carstairs little fist came down hard on the coffee table. Inky and Stinky woke up, complained, rearranged themselves in her lap and went to sleep again.

  “Go on,” Bill Smith said quietly.

  “I dug them up a suspect, on my own. A good suspect. The—finger man on the job. They follow
ed it up, in a mild way. But they didn’t get anywhere because they couldn’t get a good enough description of him. And there weren’t any pictures of him.”

  On the staircase, Dinah and April exchanged a long look. There was a picture of him. At the bottom of their laundry bag.

  “The police,” Marian went on, almost savagely, “like the fools they usually are, never found the kidnapers—the murderers. And I lost my temper and wrote a story accusing the police—and quite justifiably—of gross negligence. I had to sneak it past the editor, but it got printed. And then some stuffed shirt in the police department made a loud noise about it, and I was fired. Now, Mr. Smith, are there any more questions you want to ask?”

  “Several,” he said, “and the name is Bill. Remember? First. I can find this out with a series of wires to New York, but if you can tell me, it’ll save a little trouble. What happened to Bette LeMoe’s body?”

  She stared at him for a moment and then said, “I don’t know. That was one of the strangest things about the case. When the police released the body, it was turned over to some theatrical burial society. I followed it up, because I wanted to do a story on Bette LeMoe’s burial. But the body was stolen.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Bill Smith said. “Stolen?”

  Marian nodded. “From a cut-rate undertaking parlor in Brooklyn, where it had been taken by this theatrical burial society. A car drove up about two A.M. The night attendant was slugged. Bette LeMoe’s body, coffin and all, was carried away.”

  “But—” Bill Smith said in a dazed voice.

  “The police let it die on the vine,” Marian said angrily. “It would have been a swell story, too. I could have written the headline myself. But by that time I’d been fired for incompetence, and the name of Bette LeMoe was poison to every newspaper in the city. Not only had the chief of police raised Cain, but after all, she was only a burlesque singer, and the ransom had only been fifteen thousand dollars. So, that was the end of it. Now, is there anything else you want to know?”

  “Plenty,” Bill Smith said. “Including, who murdered Mrs. Sanford, and why? You wouldn’t have any ideas about that, would you?”

  Marian was silent a moment. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Frankie Riley was killed in her house,” Bill Smith said; “by the same gun that had killed her. But—it’s all mixed up. There’s a lot of things I don’t understand. The flower stuck in the oil painting, and the knife with ‘A Warning’ written on it. And Mr. Sanford being missing and a lot of other things. And I’ve got to find Mrs. Sanford’s murderer, it’s my job. Marian, you covered the LeMoe case and it’s tied up with this, you were a police reporter once, and you’re so smart about things—please, Marian, help me.”

  Up on the stairs, April nudged Dinah. Dinah dropped an eyelid and whispered, “That’s sold it!”

  But when Marian answered, a good sixty seconds later, it was in a curiously flat, cold voice. She said, “If I did know, or thought I could find out, who murdered Mrs. Sanford, I’d keep the information to myself. Because whoever killed her probably had a very good reason for it. And I hope you never find him.”

  Bill Smith put down his empty coffee cup and stood up. “That’s the trouble with you women. You’re emotional. You don’t think things through. You’d be willing to see Mrs. Sanford’s murderer go free because you disliked Mrs. Sanford.”

  “I hardly knew Mrs. Sanford,” Marian said icily. “How could I dislike her? I simply know that she was an evil woman, and deserved to be murdered.”

  “The laws, both legal and moral, concerning murder,” he said just as icily, “don’t take into account the objectionable personal characteristics of the victim.”

  “Oh, go to blazes,” Marian said. She stood up too, holding the kittens in her arms.

  Bill Smith said, very stiffly, “I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Carstairs.”

  “It was no trouble, I assure you, Mr. Smith,” Marian said. “I always enjoy being reassured about the stupidity of the police department.”

  He opened the door, paused, and said, “By the way. I read one of your books last night. The Kid Glove Murder, I think it was called.”

  “I’m glad you liked it,” Marian said.

  “I didn’t like it. I think it’s sentimental, wishy-washy, and full of inaccuracies. I think it stinks.” He slammed the door behind him. There was a gasp from Marian Carstairs.

  April nudged Dinah and Archie. The three of them raced silently up the stairs, and hid behind the door to the girls’ room. A minute later Marian Carstairs stalked up the stairs, still holding the kittens in her arms. Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes were very bright. She went into her room and shut the door with a bang. Then there was silence.

  “Oh, April,” Dinah said. “I’m afraid she’s going to cry. And on Mother’s Day, too.”

  “G’wan, she wouldn’t cry,” Archie said. “Why, she’s older’n I am!” There was an anxious note in his voice just the same.

  “Quiet,” April said. “Listen! Call that crying?”

  They listened, and heard the unmistakable sound of paper being inserted in a typewriter. It was followed by a sudden fury of typing. Then a paper was ripped out and thrown away, and another inserted. The typing began again, still furious. This time, it kept on.

  Dinah gasped, went down the hall, and flung open the door to Mother’s room. Mother was sitting at the desk, still in the blue house coat, her back hair coming down, and her eyes blazing. The kittens were sitting bolt upright on the desk, looking interested and slightly alarmed.

  “Mother!” Dinah gasped.

  The typewriter paused. The blazing eyes looked up. “I’m so darn mad,” Marian Carstairs said, “that I’m starting another book!” She began to bang the typewriter again. Dinah tactfully closed the door.

  “Never mind,” Dinah said. “We didn’t really want a policeman for a stepfather.”

  “You’re full of balloon juice,” April said scornfully. “You’ve been reading the wrong books or something. This is the most encouraging thing that’s happened so far.” Her eyes narrowed. “Come on! He may still be outside some place.”

  “But, April,” Dinah said, halfway down the stairs. “You can’t—”

  “Quiet,” April said. “I’m having an inspiration.”

  They paused for breath on the porch. Bill Smith could be seen leaning on the Sanford garden fence, looking thoughtful and melancholy.

  “Hey,” Archie demanded. “What’sit, what’sit, what’sit?”

  “Shush-u-tut u-pup,” April said dreamily. “Just remember I’m a genius, and don’t bother me. Dinah, when’s Mother having her hair done and her manicure?”

  “Monday,” Dinah said promptly. “Tomorrow.”

  April was silent a moment, thinking. “Then she won’t get home until late afternoon, and her hair never looks really well until it’s combed out the second time.” She thought for one more minute, then raced down the steps.

  Dinah and Archie exchanged a puzzled look, and then followed.

  April ran quickly up to Bill Smith and said breathlessly, “Oh, I’m so glad I caught you before you left. Look. Mother wants to know if you can come to dinner Tuesday night. She hopes you can come, and we do, too.”

  “What?” Bill Smith said, a little dazed. “Dinner? Tuesday night? Why—”

  The sound of furious and rapid typing was plainly audible from the house.

  “Mother would have come and asked you herself,” April said, “but she’s terrible busy. You can hear how busy she is.”

  Bill Smith looked up toward the windows of Mother’s room. “She works too hard,” he said. “Much too hard. She ought to have someone to look, after her.”

  “She has us,” Dinah said with dignity.

  “That isn’t what I mean,” Bill Smith said, still looking at the windows.

  April detected a look on Archie’s face that indicated he was just about to say exactly the wrong thing. She pinched his elbow lightly and said, hastily, �
�Then you can come, next Tuesday? Say, about six-thirty?”

  “Why—why, yes,” Bill Smith said. “I’ll be delighted. Tuesday. Six-thirty. Tell your mother I’ll be delighted. Tell her”—he gulped—“tell her I’ll be here at six-thirty, Tuesday. Tell her—” he paused. “Tuesday. Thanks. G’by, kids.” He turned and walked away, almost stumbling into a rosebush.

  April repressed a giggle, just in time. He looked exactly like Pete, the first time he’d asked Dinah for a date.

  “It isn’t funny,” Dinah said severely. “How are you going to fix this up with Mother?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” April said confidently. “Let’s see—she’ll have her hair done, and a new manicure. We’ll promote her into making one of those old-fashioned meat loafs, with gravy. And a lemon meringue pie. All men like lemon meringue pie. And, after dinner—”

  Dinah said, “All very fine, but who’s going to explain to Mother about him?”

  “Nothing to it,” April said. “You’re my sister, and we share and share alike. All right, I fixed it for him to come to dinner. That’s my share. Now, all you have to do is tell Mother she invited him!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Archie went into the kitchen and brought out a bag of apples, and the three young Carstairs settled down on the front steps to talk things over.

  “Instead of getting anywhere when we find out things,” Dinah complained, “it seems as if we just get more confused. Like what Mother was telling Bill Smith this morning.”

  April bit into her apple, and nodded vigorously. “Who would want to steal Bette LeMoe’s body? Why?”

  “Maybe it was evidence,” Archie said, expertly spitting out an apple seed.

  “But there’d been a—a autopsy, and an inquest, and everything,” April said. “The police had released the body. So—”

  “That’s pretty easy to figure out,” Dinah said. “The man who was in love with her. The man who murdered Mrs. Sanford and Frankie Riley, and is looking for Mr. Sanford.”

  April picked up the theme. “He loved her, but he couldn’t reveal himself, because he still had to have his revenge. So—” She paused, got an inspiration, and went on in a low voice, “Somewhere, in some hidden place, there was a secret burial in the dead of night, while only a lurid moon watched through the gloomy trees. And now, whenever the moon is full—”

 

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