The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  “About the fact that you’d had an affair with her?” Rick said.

  “Not just that,” he said bleakly. “That I could have handled because Helen knows I’m no saint. But there was another thing. I had a little trouble with the law once.… A long time ago I did thirty days with sixty suspended and a year’s probation—which I violated. And one night Frieda and I are together. We’d been drinking a bit and we’re there in the dark talking quiet about this and that and when I’ve a few too many my tongue loosens up.”

  He looked at his empty glass and moved over to make a fresh drink. “I talk too much, especially if I like a person. Maybe I’m talking too much now; I know I talked too much that night. So Frieda’s going to make sure Helen knows the score about me and the law and I don’t want that to happen. I’m so much in love I’m scared the thing will blow up in my face.”

  He turned on Rick, his dark gaze brooding. “I guess you could add that up to a motive for murder. Is that what you wanted?”

  Rick finished his drink and when Ashley reached for it he pulled the glass back and shook his head. He could not meet his friend’s eyes because he didn’t like what he was doing and was, in a sense, ashamed. But neither could he forget the grand jury and the threat of indictment.

  “Not quite, Tom,” he said and then he was relating the story Nancy had told him, the things she had felt and heard the night Frieda was killed. When there was no reply he spoke of Clyde Eastman’s experience.

  “I don’t know if Eastman is telling the truth,” he said, “but he’ll have to repeat it officially. He says that while you were supposed to be parked at the shore thinking about a story your car was right out back of this house. You can explain that now or not, as you like,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Tom, but I can’t hold out on the police any longer.”

  He spoke of Frederick Brainard’s pressure on the state’s attorney and what Bob Johnson had told him about the grand jury.

  “You know how it looks to me, don’t you? You phoned me that afternoon and I told you when Frieda was coming. You knew where she’d be around nine o’clock. I think you sat here in the dark after you’d put the car out back. You didn’t want anyone to know you were home but you were going to wait for Frieda to leave my place. You were going to have it out with her. I don’t say you planned to kill her but you must have had something in mind.”

  Ashley knocked the dottle from his pipe and blew through the stem. He tapped it absently against his teeth before he put the pipe aside. He picked up his glass and now his rugged face was grave and shiny in the lamplight.

  “I washed the car late that afternoon,” he said quietly. “I washed it out back because it was shady there. Afterwards, I sat here thinking. I made a drink and then another and then I went out to eat.”

  He paused, his gaze remote. “When I came back it was about eight thirty and I can’t tell you why I put the car out back again because I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t thinking and just put it back where I got it; maybe I had something else in mind and did it on purpose. It was dark then and I came in and got a brandy and men another and all the time I was wondering what I was going to do. I saw the lights in your place and finally I went over there. I guess I must have had some thought about seeing Frieda or I wouldn’t have gone. Anyway, I did. I’m not sure what time it was and I didn’t know what had happened, so I walked round and looked in your window. Frieda was on the floor and I couldn’t see you or anyone else. I went inside.”

  He reached over to open a desk drawer. From the back of it he withdrew some glistening yellow object and turned it over in his big hand before he tossed it lightly to Rick.

  Apparently a gold cigarette lighter, it was about two inches square and a quarter of an inch thick, heavy for its size, the surface engine-turned except for a small rectangle on which had been engraved the figures 8—9—56.

  “Her bag had been knocked open,” Ashley said. “Stuff spilled all over the floor. This was under the davenport. Standing up you probably wouldn’t see it but I was hunkered down beside Frieda, knowing she was dead. I was too shocked to do much thinking but I saw this thing and reached for it, not knowing what it was. I was still there when I heard the car stop out front.”

  He paused to rub one hand hard across his brow. “I didn’t know who it was. All I knew was I had to get out of there. I didn’t even know I still had that thing in my hand until I was halfway home. I don’t know why I stopped in the kitchen either, but I did. I heard someone come in and then a cry, a woman’s cry. I started to leave but I was shaking pretty bad and maybe that’s why Nancy heard me at the door. I took off across the field and got into my car and beat it with the lights off until I thought I was safe.”

  Rick remembered the open bag, the spilled contents on the rug. He could see the picture clearly and understood how the lighter could have skidded under the divan. But— His head came up, his eyes half-closed. There had been another cigarette lighter near the bag. He was positive of this. He said so now.

  “She had a lighter. I saw it.”

  “That’s not a lighter,” Ashley said. “Flip up the top.”

  Rick did so and then he saw the little plunger.

  “It’s a perfume atomizer, or whatever you call ’em. You press that gadget and it squirts perfume. Try it.”

  Rick found that this was true and the scent was so strong he flipped the top back and closed his fingers around it. He knew somehow that this was the end of the story. How much of it was true he could not tell but he also knew it was not for him to judge. He hoisted himself wearily from the chair.

  “Okay, Tom. I’m sorry I had to come but I wanted you to know how it was with me. I’ve got to tell the police in the morning. I haven’t any choice.”

  Nothing moved in Ashley’s body or in his face. His dark eyes looked tired but Rick could see no resentment in them and somehow that made him feel worse.

  “Sure, Rick,” Ashley lifted one shoulder an inch and let it drop. “I can’t say I blame you.… Thanks for warning me, anyway,” he said. “I guess you know your way out.”

  Rick wanted to say something else but the words would not come, so he turned into the hall and felt his way out through the doorway into the night.

  Chapter 16

  By the time Rick Sheridan was back in his own house it seemed to him that he had never felt worse in his life. He wanted a drink but refused to give in to the desire. He knew the gnawing emptiness inside him did not come from hunger but he went into the kitchen with the hope that something in his stomach might help to settle it.

  There was about a cup of milk in the refrigerator and an oblong of stale cheese and when he had carved off a small piece he poured the milk and found some crackers. Taking two of these, he went into the bedroom, chewing as he moved and using the milk to help him swallow.

  He sat on the edge of the bed but he lacked the energy to start undressing. What he was unable to do was to stop dunking and presently a detail occurred to him that he had forgotten. Neither he nor Ashley had mentioned it and he began to wonder what the explanation was.

  “If Ashley had killed Frieda, what happened to her car?”

  This was what he asked himself and now he began to speculate about the time element. Suppose Ashley had been waiting outside when he, Rick, had stormed from the house. Suppose he had come inside and found Frieda in her fury. In such a mood she could aggravate any man, particularly one whose happiness and future she had threatened.

  If Ashley had killed her it would not have taken long. In a panic then, wanting to make it look as if someone not in the neighborhood was guilty, he would have to get rid of the car.

  A man who knew the roads and was a good driver might make the South Norwalk station in ten minutes at that time of night. A couple of minutes to find a taxi, another ten minutes to ride to some point not too far from here. Another two or three minutes to run cross country to his place—

  But he had not done that. He had come back here. To make sur
e he had left nothing that would point to him?

  How long would that have taken?

  With the breaks, twenty-five minutes. Give him thirty and say he had left here at ten or twelve minutes after nine and he still could have made it before Nancy drove up.…

  He finished his milk and lit a cigarette. Absently he untied his shoes and kicked them off. He got out of his shirt and still he sat there because there was one point he could not be sure of.

  The gold atomizer.

  Ashley might have taken this just as he said he had, not knowing he was doing it when he heard Nancy coming. But if this was so, why should he have handed over that atomizer tonight?

  Somewhere in the distance an automobile horn beeped and was still. Rick sat where he was, no longer conscious of time, his angular face twisted and the cigarette slanting from his lips while the question went round and round inside his head. It was then that he heard the shots.

  Never for an instant did he believe that what he heard might be a car backfiring. He had heard too much gunfire in his life to be fooled this time. Three shots in all—two of them close together, the third a second or two later. And he knew the direction from which they had come.

  That was what shook him. That was why he reached for his shoes and jammed his bare feet into them, pulling the laces tight but taking no time to tie them.

  He was on his feet now, already running as he went through the living room, afraid to think but somehow noticing the clock and realizing that it had been barely twenty minutes since he had left Tom Ashley.

  His heart was pounding as he dashed out the front door, not from exertion but from an emotional pressure that fed upon an oddly paralyzing sort of fear. He cut sharply as he hit the lawn and then, as the darkness swallowed him, he was racing down the side of the road, his strides awkward and clumsy as he tried to keep his shoes from falling off. He cursed himself for not tying them but would not stop, and now the headlights of an approaching car projected his lengthening shadow on the road ahead as it came up behind him.

  He did not hesitate, but he half turned as the car sped past and now, up ahead, he saw something sprawled by the roadside. For a second or two then the car slowed and swung slightly to one side so that its lights gave more definition to the inert object by the roadside.

  Rick yelled at the car in the hope that it would stop. For a moment he thought it would do so and his mind automatically registered the number of the license plate. Then, closer now and still running, he began to curse as he saw the lights angle away and watched the car pick up speed.

  The dryness in his throat closed round his words as the light diminished. His helpless curses became whispers but he mentally repeated the license number, remembering everything except the first letter. Blank—A—710.… Blank—A—710.…

  He was sobbing for breath when he reached the edge of Ashley’s lawn. He could see the white of the T-shirt against the grass before the man’s motionless form took shape, and somehow he had skidded to one knee beside it, aware that Tom Ashley lay on his side, head pillowed on one outstretched arm. One foot was bare, the moccasin beside it, and now Rick called out, his voice husky with fear and exertion.

  “Tom… Tom!

  He reached for a shoulder to shake it. He felt the weight of the torso as it rolled limply on its back. He saw the dark stain on the chest that seemed to widen even as he stared down at it. Finally he found some way to think, to understand that even minutes might be vital.

  On his feet even as the thought came to him, he wheeled and headed for the front door. Then he was in the study and grabbing for the telephone and almost losing it because his palms were so wet.

  He got the operator and said what he had to say about the police and the ambulance. He put the telephone back and stood a moment to look round the familiar room, seeing the pipe Tom had used, the empty glasses with bits of melted ice still standing in the bottoms, the bourbon bottle that was now two-thirds empty.

  Somehow he got back out beside the road and this time he leaned close and lifted a bare arm that was heavy in his hand. He slid his fingers along the wrist and pressed hard. He kept them there with breath held. For one brief instant he thought he felt a beat but when he tried again he understood that what he had felt was not the pulsing of Tom’s heart but his own.

  He put the arm down, the sickness rising in him. He stood up and swallowed against the nausea in his throat. To contain it he put his head back and breathed deeply. No car came by as he stood there and there was no sound in the night.

  For perhaps three or four minutes he stood like that and gradually the spasm of his sickness passed. He accepted the fact that his friend he had so recently accused was dead; he also began to think. The helpless rage, the feeling of futility that had gripped him, abated and became a cold and calculating force, and when he again turned toward the house a new purpose was churning in his mind.

  He was certain now that this murder could not be coincidence, as it might well have been in Frieda’s case. He could not believe that someone just happened to drive up during that twenty minutes after he had left, nor did he think that Ashley had made a date for this particular time.

  Instead, someone must have come earlier, perhaps while they were still talking in the study. That someone had parked near by and waited until Ashley was alone before he had come here. There might have been another talk in the study while the killer found out what Ashley knew and realized that his own safety could be guaranteed only by Ashley’s silence.

  Ashley knew he must talk to the police tomorrow. For some reason he had not told Rick the complete truth but he must have known he would have to do so tomorrow if only to save himself. Still not realizing his own danger he had come out of the house with the killer. Here on the lawn the last words—had there been an argument or threats?—had been spoken in the dark and only then, when it was too late, had Ashley seen the gun.

  Three shots. The killer running for his car to get away before he could be seen. Ashley staggering the few steps in pursuit before he collapsed.…

  Rick had been moving back into the study as these thoughts came to him and now he picked up the New York telephone directory and found Stuart Gorton’s number. Moments later he heard it ringing and he counted each one before he hung up and reached for the local directory.

  When he had Clyde Eastman’s number he dialed it. Again he counted the distant ringing and once more there was no reply. The third number he knew. He dialed. He listened to the first two rings and then a woman answered, her voice sounding thick with sleep.

  “Yes.… This is the Farrell residence,” she said, as though not quite understanding what Rick had said.

  “Elinor?… This is Rick Sheridan. I’m sorry to bother you but I wanted to speak to Austin. Is he there?”

  “Oh—Rick? Why, no, he isn’t. But I’m expecting him. He said he would be staying in the city for dinner. He should be here any time now. Shall I have him—”

  “No.… No, that’s all right. I’ll try in the morning, Elinor.”

  Well, he thought bitterly, that’s that. No alibis for anyone.

  He put the telephone down and stood up. As he did so he heard a car skid to a stop outside, and that told him the state police were here. Aware that his time was up, he took another breath and went outside to meet the early arrivals.

  The routine that followed was somewhat more familiar this time. There were the usual cars, the same specialists, the air of businesslike confusion which eventually took on a pattern of its own.

  As before, Lieutenant Legett was the first officer of rank on the scene and after he had been given a brief fill in he said Rick could wait in the study—after the bottle glasses, and ice bucket had been removed for further inspection. A uniformed man remained near the doorway to glance in and see how Rick was doing from time to time but there was no more talk until County Detective Manning came in with the lieutenant.

  Manning took his hat off and wiped his brow. This done he began to polish the metal-
rimmed glasses. Without them his eyes seemed to take on an added shrewdness.

  “You told the lieutenant you left here about twenty minutes before you heard the shots,” he said.

  “About that.”

  “How long were you here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a half hour, maybe longer.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “I thought he might have killed my wife. I told him why I thought so.”

  “You didn’t say anything about that this morning.”

  “There were a lot of things I didn’t know this morning.”

  “Like what?”

  Legett interrupted. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mr. Sheridan. Try to keep what you said and what he said as close as you can.”

  Rick folded his bare arms across his undershirt, took a breath and started. It took him quite a while but he got it out in the end. The only thing he missed was the bit about the gold atomizer and something he did not understand made him conveniently forget that part. When he finished Manning swore softly.

  “It’s happened before,” he said irritably. “Instead of coming clean with us so we can handle the job, some people hold out for one reason or another. They can’t get it through their thick heads that someone who has killed before may try again when he’s cornered.… Even that girl friend of yours held out on us about hearing a noise in the kitchen the other night,” he snapped.

  “She didn’t hold out,” Rick said. “She was still scared when you questioned her. She forgot it. She didn’t even remember to tell me until this afternoon.… Did you talk to Clyde Eastman?”

  “We haven’t located him yet,” Legett said.

  “Ashley lied about the time,” Manning said. “He didn’t go over to your house that night when he told you he did,” he said to Rick. “He must have gone over there earlier and seen enough to know who did the job. All he had to do was say so and he’d be alive right now.”