Foggy, Foggy Death

by Frances Lockridge

  Then Lucretia Bromwell came into her East Room, looked at everybody, and patted her son on the shoulder. She sat in the reserved chair and said to Forniss, “Well, young man, what’s wanted now?” But Heimrich had come in, then, and answered for the sergeant.

  “What’s been all along, Mrs. Bromwell,” he said. “To get things straightened out.”

  He pushed a chair into one end of the semi-circle, so that it was opposite that of Mrs. Bromwell. He chose a straight chair.

  “To get things straightened out,” he repeated. “To find out which of you killed two people.” He looked around at all of them, as if giving each in turn a chance to speak. There was strain in each face; even in Stephen Nickel’s, even in the long face of Lucretia Bromwell herself. “Since,” Heimrich said, “one of you did. Or, possibly, two of you together.” He looked at Karen, then. He looked at Scott Bromwell.

  “Mr. Bromwell, for instance,” Heimrich said, “planned to kill his wife. He denies he did kill her. He even denies, naturally, that he planned to. But he admits a plan—and that Higgins, among other things, prevented its being carried out. He first denied seeing Higgins last night; now he admits it.” Heimrich held the cuff links in his hand, as if he were weighing them. “He had to, finally,” Heimrich said. “Who else saw Higgins?”

  This was unexpected; a sudden shift. Heimrich looked around at them.

  “Miss James,” he said, “you gave him a package of cigarettes. Part of a package. When?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know what—” She paused, was told to go on. “I thought there was part of a package in my room,” she said. “When I looked, there wasn’t. Is that the one you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said. “Is it?”

  “I didn’t give him anything,” Pauline James said. She spoke from behind her shielding hand. “If he was there—if he got the cigarettes—I don’t know anything about it.”

  “But,” Heimrich said, “you don’t ask how we know he got them from you.”

  “Now captain,” Nickel said. “Now captain. We’ve all heard of fingerprints.”

  Heimrich was unperturbed. He said, “Naturally” and, for a moment, closed his eyes. He opened them again.

  “You came here to steal the little boy,” he told Nickel. “You say Marta Bromwell acquiesced; even helped. You say she was going away with you. But—Miss James, who did help you, didn’t know that. That wasn’t the way she got it, was it Mr. Nickel? Not at all the way, was it?”

  “I can’t help that,” Nickel said. He looked at Pauline, who did not move, or seem to see him.

  “Instead of helping you, Marta Bromwell might have tried to stop you, mightn’t she?” Heimrich said. “And—as Mr. Haas found out a while ago—you’re a tough man to stop, aren’t you? You don’t mind-pushing people. Maybe you pushed too hard. Maybe after you pushed too hard, you made up this other story. Which would explain Miss James’s surprise, wouldn’t it? She’d never heard about this plan of yours, because there wasn’t any such plan. You just came to kidnap the boy. Planning to get money for returning him, later.”

  “Not so good, captain,” Nickel said, but his tone was not quite so assured as it had been. “I brought the kid back.”

  “Because things had got out of hand,” Heimrich said. “There’d been complications; it wasn’t going to work out. You thought up this plausible story, decided to claim Lorry was your son—perhaps figuring, later, to make a deal of some sort with Mr. Bromwell. How’s that, Mr. Nickel.”

  “Lousy,” Nickel said. But he spoke quickly, with uncharacteristic emphasis. “And—he is my son.”

  Heimrich looked at him for a moment.

  “Miss Mason,” he said, and turned on her, “you still deny seeing Higgins last night—except in this—this shadow-play you tell about?”

  “Yes,” Karen said.

  “In spite of the earrings?”

  “Yes.”

  “In spite of the fact that—Marta Bromwell was in your way? Your way—and Mr. Bromtvell’s?”

  “That’s not true,” Karen said. “We didn’t—we—”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “She wasn’t in our way, as you call it,” Karen said. “We didn’t even—”

  Scott interrupted her.

  “There is nothing between Miss Mason and me,” he said. “She knew nothing about—about any of it.”

  “Now Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said. “Now Mr. Bromwell.”

  “Captain Heimrich,” Lucretia Bromwell said, “you are entirely absurd. What you suggest is—nonsense.”

  “Why?” Heimrich asked her. “Because your son was deeply in love with his wife? He doesn’t pretend that, Mrs. Bromwell.”

  “Certainly not,” she said. “Not with Marta. There is, however, someone—”

  “No,” Scott said. “Don’t, mother. Skip it.”

  “Someone else?” Heimrich said. “Who, Mrs. Bromwell?”

  “Perhaps I was wrong,” Mrs. Bromwell said. “I thought—however, your other suggestion—” She hesitated. “Of course,” she said, “I realize I can’t speak for Karen.”

  Karen looked at Lucretia Bromwell—and felt, suddenly, that she had never looked at her before. The long, old face held no expression; it was merely formidable. It was merely—frightening. Why, Karen thought, to help Scott she’d— she’d say anything.

  “Mr. Haas,” Heimrich said, “you still want to say that Marta Bromwell was going away with you, not Mr. Nickel? That you spent the time you were gone—the long time—waiting for her at Stamford?”

  “And driving back here in the fog,” Haas said. He was controlled again; suave again. “As for the other—I have no idea what Nickel thought. Or—what others here thought. Except that they hated Marta. All of them.”

  “Fiddlesticks,” Lucretia Bromwell said. “This—this person is ridiculous, captain.”

  “And,” Haas said, “as you can see, they are very—contemptuous. They regard themselves as of a special kind. If Marta had gone with me they would have felt it made them extremely—undignified. Even ridiculous. A young woman from the Middle West and the remarkable Bromwells. If she ran away with a—an orchestra leader—people might laugh at the Bromwells.” He turned to Scott and seemed to bow slightly. “Particularly at Mr. Bromwell,” he said.

  “In what kind of a world,” Mrs. Bromwell enquired, “does this person live?”

  She appeared to address her enquiry to infinity. It was not answered.

  “On the other hand, Mr. Haas,” Heimrich said, “you are a very excitable man. As you proved today. If you discovered that Marta Bromwell was, in fact, going with Nickel and not with you—that she had merely been using you—you would have been very excited, naturally. You don’t deny that?”

  Haas reddened momentarily. But this time he did not lose his temper.

  “I would never have done anything to harm Marta,” he said. He paused. He took a breath. “I loved her,” he said.

  Then it seemed to Karen that Haas achieved a dignity quite different from that to which his suavity, his careful grooming, so publicly pretended.

  “Did you love her, Mr. Nickel?” Heimrich asked.

  Nickel did not seem ready for the question. It was a moment before he shook his head. He said he wouldn’t call it that.

  “But you, Miss James,” Heimrich said. “You—would have called it that. And—been jealous?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Because—because until afterward I didn’t know what Steve was—was planning to do.”

  “No?” Heimrich said. “Miss James—did you follow Marta Bromwell last evening? After you gave the little boy to Mr. Nickel? Follow her toward the garage? The kennels?”

  Pauline James took her hand away from her face, then.

  “Does he say that?” she demanded, and indicated Nickel.

  “Pauliel” he said. “For God’s sake!”

  “Did you?” Heimrich insisted. “Whoever says it?”

  “No,”
Pauline James said. “No. No. No!”

  “I only told you what I saw, captain,” Lucretia Bromwell said. “What I thought it meant. Miss James could merely have gone out to—for some fresh air.”

  “I went around the house, from the west wing door,” Pauline said. “I was carrying Lorry. He—” she indicated Stephen Nickel— “was waiting and took Lorry. I went back the same way.”

  “Then from this side of the house,” Heimrich said, “you couldn’t have been seen?”

  “I don’t see how,” Pauline James said. “I—”

  “Mrs. Bromwell?” Heimrich said.

  “It is obvious,” Lucretia Bromwell said, “that she should deny it. Even if, in fact, she did not kill Marta. I told you what I saw.”

  But, Karen thought, when I watched Marta—

  The thought was not finished, because Mrs. Bromwell was continuing.

  “As for our hating Marta,” she said, “—and I must say you have a very jumpy mind, captain—as for our hating Marta, that is nonsense. She could be very irritating, to all of us. She often was. Yesterday afternoon, for example, she was—being very unpleasant to Karen. Even Karen lost her temper. It was—”

  “When was this?” Heimrich’s question rode Mrs. Bromwell down; it seemed to ride her down very easily.

  “Why,” Mrs. Bromwell said, “quite early, I think. I came into the room—this room—and Karen and Marta were quarreling. They seemed—very angry.” She paused, seeming surprised at what she said. “But I don’t mean—” she said.

  “It isn’t true,” Karen said. “We were—it wasn’t a quarrel. Mrs. Bromwell, what are …

  The branch was as old as the maple tree, but weaker than the whole tree. As the ice thickened, pulling the branch down, the bark began to crack where the bough joined the trunk. The bough began to sag a little, almost imperceptibly. Its creaking as it moved took on a different note.…

  “You’re trying to save Scott,” Karen said, and suddenly she was on her feet. “You don’t care who you hurt, what you—” And then she stopped, because, as if it were happening then, happening all over again, she saw Lucretia Bromwell holding a tailored white blouse, carrying it toward the bathroom—and saw the french cuffs of the blouse dangling open.

  “They weren’t yours!” Karen said, and turned on Scott. “They weren’t yours at all. They were hers! And so you—”

  “Wait a minute, Miss Mason,” Heimrich said. “What are you talking about?”

  “The cuff links,” Karen said. “Don’t you see?”

  “I don’t, naturally,” Heimrich said, and then, without raising his voice, “Sit still, Mrs. Bromwell.” He looked an instant at the tall old woman. “Go on, Miss Mason,” he said. “Go right ahead.”

  Karen looked at Scott Bromwell, who still did not look at her. But Mrs. Bromwell did.

  “What’s the matter with the girl?” Mrs. Bromwell asked.

  “These, apparently,” Heimrich said, and held the gold cuff links out in his open hand. “Go on, Miss Mason.”

  “She was wearing them yesterday,” Karen said. “She must have been. She had on a blouse with french cuffs when she was wearing a suit—before she changed.” She made herself speak slowly, carefully. “Today she started to put on the blouse again and then decided it was soiled. She was surprised. She carried it to the hamper and the cuffs fell open. But she didn’t take links out then. She didn’t need to, because they had already been taken. Either she just discovered that when I was there or—she had forgotten. So she pretended the blouse was soiled, although she’d only worn it for an hour or two.”

  Karen paused a moment.

  “And,” she said, “Scott claimed them because he realized that—that it was his mother who had seen Higgins.” She looked at Scott. “Tell him,” she said. But Scott Bromwell did not move. “Don’t you see?” she asked Heimrich, but Heimrich, after a moment, shook his head.

  Even if what she said was true, he pointed out, the fact did not necessarily prove anything. Because, if Higgins had got earrings from her room without her knowledge—as she claimed—cigarettes from Miss James’s room without her knowledge—as she claimed—he could have got the cuff links from Mrs. Bromwell’s room, again without being seen by Mrs. Bromwell.

  “The difference is,” Karen said, “she—she lied about it. And Scott lied for her. She didn’t admit—”

  “Fiddlesticks,” Mrs. Bromwell said sharply. “The girl’s beside herself. I’ve no idea what Scott said, or why he said it, but of course the links are mine. Apparently this Higgins got into my room some time and stole them. It proves nothing.”

  But again Heimrich shook his head.

  “Now Mrs. Bromwell,” he said, “why did your son think it did? Why was he so sure it did?”

  “My son,” Mrs. Bromwell said, “will have to speak for himself.”

  But Scott Bromwell did not speak for himself. He was given time. He did not speak at all.

  “Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said, “did you see Higgins last night?”

  Scott seemed about to speak, and they waited. But again he did not speak.

  “Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said, “it seems to me that, short of confessing, you’ve done about all you can. Doesn’t it to you?”

  “He has nothing to confess,” Lucretia Bromwell said. She was leaning forward now.

  “No,” Heimrich said, “I don’t think he has, Mrs. Bromwell. I don’t really think he has.”

  Now his whole attention, formerly so erratic, had one center, and the center was the dominating old woman by the fire.

  “You see,” he said to her, “he didn’t have to guess as much as the rest of us. Because—whatever hypotheses could be strung together—it was always clear what Higgins knew. He knew that Mr. Bromwell had hidden the car as part of a plan to—well, say to meet his wife on the road. He says not to kill her—and maybe he wouldn’t have. But—you thought he would, didn’t you? So—you killed her first.”

  “Fiddle—” Mrs. Bromwell began, but Heimrich shook his head, and, unexpectedly, she was silenced.

  “With what Higgins knew,” Heimrich said, “it was obvious, naturally, that he would go to Mr. Bromwell. So obvious that it was easy not to see there was another person he might have gone to—you, Mrs. Bromwell. Figuring you would pay for your son’s protection. What Higgins didn’t know, of course, was that you had an additional reason to—keep him quiet. That if we—Forniss and I—did finally decide your son was guilty, you’d have to speak up. So you killed Higgins for your own sake, didn’t you, Mrs. Bromwell?”

  She merely stared at him.

  “Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said after he had waited, “your mother knew of your plan, didn’t she?”

  This time Scott looked at his mother; then he looked away from her.

  “I don’t—” he began, but Karen spoke quickly.

  “He thought she did,” Karen said. “He told me so. Thought she saw him with the jewel case, listened on the telephone when the people from the kennels called, put two and two together. But—but Scott didn’t plan to kill her! He would never have—have hurt her.”

  Heimrich looked at her.

  “I know it,” she repeated. “I—I know Scott!”

  Then Heimrich nodded.

  “Perhaps you do,” he said. “Perhaps you do. But—his mother didn’t, you see. When did you realize the way things were, Mr. Bromwell?”

  Scott did not answer, and Heimrich apparently did not expect him to.

  “Naturally,” he said, “you knew when you saw the cuff links. You realized that Higgins would go either to you or to your mother. And—he hadn’t found you, had he? So you knew then.”

  “Scott,” Mrs. Bromwell said, and she stood up then. “Was I wrong?”

  Scott hesitated; he spoke finally, very slowly.

  “Yes,” he said, “I think you were.”

  Lucretia Bromwell looked at him as if, only then, had she ever really seen him. And then she reddened slowly, as if she had been guilty of public aw
kwardness. (Karen could no longer look at Lucretia Bromwell, who had committed murder by mistake, because of misjudgment and who blushed for the error.)

  “I am afraid,” Mrs. Bromwell said, “that I made myself rather ridiculous, Captain Heimrich.”

  Heimrich opened his eyes then, having never heard confession of murder so phrased. After a second he nodded.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said. “I’m afraid you weren’t very—”

  The burden of ice was too much for the old branch. It tore loose with a rending sound and fell across the power lines and the telephone cable. They checked it only for an instant, and broke under it. The power cables writhed on the ice of the road, fire spitting from them at the ancient enemy of damp. Over an area of several square miles the lights went off.…

  “—very—” Heimrich said, and they were in sudden darkness when he finished the word. The fire flickered, but its light was nothing—was at first only a source of uneasy shadows—in the big room. For several seconds everyone was blinded, less by the darkness—which was not absolute—than by the abruptness of the light’s failure. In those seconds there was a sense of movement.

  “Stay where you are,” Heimrich said, his voice heavy and abrupt. “Sergeant!”

  It was the one on Karen’s right who moved first, who flicked on a pocket lighter. It lighted the face of Stephen Nickel, but at first nothing else. Involuntarily, all—even Heimrich and Forniss—looked at this abrupt tiny light, which made the circle of darkness outside it only the more intense. There was no doubt, now, that someone was moving.

  “Stay where you are. All of you,” Captain Heimrich ordered again. “Sergeant—stop her!”

  Forniss aready was moving toward the rear of the room. But his first movement brought him hard against a chair; he pitched forward in the darkness, clutching for it; landed sprawled in it. He swore. He pulled himself out of the chair. And then a door closed sharply, with finality.