Death, My Darling Daughters

by Jonathan Stagge

  “Who with?” My daughter’s eyes kindled with sudden hope. “With Lizzle?”

  “Yes,” I said in exasperation. “I’m going to walk her home, and I’ll probably ask her to marry me and maybe we’ll drive into Grovestown and get married and the rats can move into our barn tomorrow.”

  These black lies seemed, if not to convince, at least to satisfy my daughter. Whistling grandiosely to keep up her courage, she hurried away across the dark lawn toward the road. I hoped that the owls and things would behave themselves.

  When I re-entered the living room the family group had not dispersed. In fact there was no indication that any of them had moved in my absence. Nor had the chilly silence thawed.

  Mrs. Lanchester was the first to speak. She asked the frigid question: “The inspector?”

  “He had to go back to Grovestown,” I said. “He wants me to find out certain things.” I paused. “I think you and Dr. and Mrs. Kenton-Oakes should be able to help me.”

  Emily Lanchester stared at me as if she had difficulty in familiarizing herself with this new officious personage who had so startlingly emerged from her meek, biddable swain of the day before.

  Mrs. Kenton-Oakes sniffed and said: “Help you? My dear man, how on earth can we help you?”

  “By answering a few questions.”

  “But—”

  “Belle, my dear,” interrupted Dr. Kenton-Oakes sadly, “I wish you could learn that it is unnecessary to live in a state of perpetual outrage. You speak to Dr. Westlake as if he were proposing to strike you with a length of rubber hose.” He turned to me. “Of course Emily, Belle, and myself will do everything we can.”

  He rose. With some reluctance, Mrs. Lanchester and Mrs. Kenton-Oakes rose too and moved across the hall into the dining room, which seemed to be the recognized locale for all unpleasant interviews. The two sisters seated themselves on stiff wooden chairs at the table. Polishing his spectacles on a handkerchief, Dr. Kenton-Oakes followed suit.

  He had regained all the composure which he had temporarily lost in the music room. As I shuffled somewhat awkwardly, he said:

  “You are no doubt embarrassed, Dr. Westlake. I can assure you that we are equally so. Since one’s brother-in-law is not—er—murdered every day, we none of us expect this to be an attractive experience. So pray be seated and be as rude as you wish.”

  Mrs. Kenton-Oakes sniffed. Mrs. Lanchester, who had not, it seemed, completely decided upon the most suitable emotional reaction to this most unsuitable situation, sat looking decorative and noncommittal.

  “I imagine,” continued Dr. Kenton-Oakes, “that you have a natural, professional desire to discover who committed these terrible crimes. I am sure we will do our best to assist you, even should it prove to be one of us in this room.”

  “Richard!” expostulated Mrs. Kenton-Oakes.

  The little doctor raised his hand. “My dear Belle, this is one of those rare occasions on which I am entitled to ask you to keep quiet. Well, Dr. Westlake, what is it that you wish to know?”

  “Quite a few things,” I said. “There’s Dr. Hilton’s will, for example. We shall have to know about that, of course.”

  “George’s will,” repeated Mrs. Lanchester for no apparent reason.

  “Ah yes.” Dr. Kenton-Oakes’s face had become a vacant British mask. “That is a somewhat complicated situation. Rather than one will, it is a question of three wills. George’s own will; his mother’s and his father’s wills.”

  He put his small, intelligent hands on the table. “Both Benjamin Hilton and his wife were extremely well-to-do. Mrs. Hilton was the first to die. George had always been her favorite. She left her entire fortune to him with only the vaguest request that he should provide for Belle and Emily, should they be in want.” He turned to his wife. “Is that not correct, my dear?”

  “You know perfectly well it is,” she snapped.

  Dr. Kenton-Oakes continued: “It is to be assumed that Mrs. Hilton expected her husband to leave Emily and Belle adequately provided for. You see, at the time of her death, they were mere children. Benjamin Hilton, however, being dynastically inclined, left all his money in trust to his grandchildren, with George in full command of the income until he passed away or the grandchildren became thirty, an age at which Mr. Hilton felt they would be sagacious enough to handle their own affairs. Once again, there was no provision for Emily and Belle.”

  Self-consciously keeping my eyes from the two sisters, I said: “So neither Mrs. Lanchester nor Mrs. Kenton-Oakes received any of the Hilton money except for what Dr. Hilton felt inclined to give them?”

  “Precisely. And George chose to interpret the clause ‘In Want’ literally. Emily has a certain small income from her late husband in addition to her properties in Italy. And I am a man of sufficient means to support a wife. George’s financial assistance has never been—shall we say?—lavish.”

  Mrs. Lanchester had decided apparently that the most suitable emotional reaction was to be feminine and vague. With an exquisite gesture of protest, she said: “Really, Richard, all these embarrassing details.”

  “Dear me, am I being a bore, Emily?” Dr. Kenton-Oakes peered at his sister-in-law. “You must excuse me. I have always prided myself on being something of a bore, and on this occasion it is essential that I remain one, for Dr. Westlake wishes to know these things. Let me see. Oh yes. We are left now only with George’s will to consider. I am not a nosy man myself, Doctor, but I am married to an—er—an alert woman, and Belle has frequently discussed her brother’s will with me. Naturally George had no legal right to dispose of the Benjamin Hilton trust fund, which automatically goes to the grandchildren. His own will concerns the money inherited from his mother and the not inconsiderable sum he has saved from his own earnings. According to a will drawn up at the time of his second marriage, his own money was to go to his new wife, while the money inherited from his mother was to be equally divided between his two sisters. He realized, you see, that they had some moral if no legal right to this money.”

  His lips twitched in the faintest suggestion of a smile. “It is not impossible that Emily and Belle had some hand in helping him to this realization.”

  In spite of the touch of levity with which Dr. Kenton-Oakes attempted to minimize the importance of what he told me, its importance remained obvious. While Dr. Hilton was alive, Perdita, Rosalind, Helena, Belle, Emily, and Janie had all been beggars for the meager crumbs that fell from his table. Now, with Dr. Hilton dead, they were all to be rich women in their own rights.

  That Dr. Kenton-Oakes was fully conscious of the implications inherent in what he had said was made plain when he added: “It has doubtless occurred to you by now, Dr. Westlake, that all the ladies had an impressive motive for wishing George dead. Before you draw any hasty conclusions, however, I would like to point out that it takes a little more than a motive to make a murderer. Personally, I find it a trifle farfetched to think of any of these ladies indulging in so crude and violent a pastime.”

  Remembering some of the glimpses I had caught behind the well-disciplined scenes, I was not in complete agreement with him.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Mrs. Lanchester rose. With a smooth politeness more appropriate to a ballroom than a murder investigation, she murmured: “Well, that is that, Dr. Westlake. I am sure Richard will be able to tell you anything else you may wish to know. If you will excuse me—”

  As she started for the door, I called: “One moment, please, Mrs. Lanchester.”

  She turned. “Yes?”

  “There’s one thing I particularly want to ask you. This afternoon you told me that you had received some most disturbing news. I’d like to know what that news was.”

  For a strange moment it seemed to me that a glance charged with conspiratorial meaning flashed between Mrs. Lanchester and Dr. Kenton-Oakes.

  “Disturbing news?” She repeated my phrase with affected naïveté. “Now let me see—when was that?”

  “When you were in th
e garden cutting off dead flowers this evening.”

  “Oh, really? Isn’t that strange? I can’t think what it could be unless—Oh yes, my late zinnia seeds hadn’t arrived from Burpee’s. Could that be it?”

  Until then I had imagined that Mrs. Lanchester could have had a brilliant career on the stage, but this performance wouldn’t have made the grade in a barn at Sam’s Landing, Idaho. As I gazed at her, quite perplexed, I noticed that Belle was gazing at her too and that the expression of exasperation which I had seen when she was quarreling with her sister that afternoon was once more tautening the muscles of her face.

  Quietly I said: “I think it was something more important than zinnia seeds, Mrs. Lanchester.”

  Dr. Kenton-Oakes broke in then, as if prompting: “Emily, my dear, was it not something to do with the horses? Did not Helena tell you that the mare had gone lame?”

  “Oh yes, yes. That was it,” said Mrs. Lanchester with a smile of distinct relief. “That was it, of course.”

  “Nonsense.” The word erupted from Belle Kenton-Oakes. “Really, what’s got into you and Richard, Emily? You know there’s nothing wrong with the mare. And you know perfectly well what upset you. It was the same thing that upset me.”

  “Belle—” began Dr. Kenton-Oakes.

  “Don’t ‘Belle’ me, Richard.” Mrs. Kenton-Oakes tossed her head again. “You were upset, Emily, because George had finally decided upon that crazy idea of giving all his money to found that institute or whatever it was.”

  “All his money!” I echoed.

  Emily Lanchester stood quite rigid while Dr. Kenton-Oakes leaned back in his chair and gave a small, long-suffering sigh.

  “Belle, my dear Belle, it would sometimes appear that you have even less wit than the little I am prepared to grant you. Did you not realize that Emily and I were attempting to conceal that fact?”

  “I know. I know.” Mrs. Kenton-Oakes’s voice was both pettish and ashamed. “But Emily was being so silly about it. And she always annoys me when she’s like that. Besides, Dr.—er—would be sure to find it out for himself anyway, and then he’d think we’d been keeping it back because we were guilty or something.”

  Mrs. Lanchester sat down again, very straight, on a chair. Dr. Kenton-Oakes turned to me, throwing out his hands in a gesture which was intended to be charming and rueful.

  “Well, it is out now. Perhaps, as I once said to Lady God-stone when my wife offered the now dowager Queen the address of her own milliner, perhaps in the long run Belle has more sense than the rest of us put together. It was foolish, perhaps, to try to keep this from you.”

  I said: “Let’s get it straight. I knew he was planning to make this research endowment. But was he going to give all his money to it?”

  “I am afraid that is precisely what he was going to do, Dr. Westlake. Several weeks ago—during the ptomaine attack he suffered in Boston, in fact—George conceived this idea of the Hilton Endowment. At the time, the family was able to dissuade him from taking this drastic step. But this afternoon he informed Emily and Belle—and presumably Janie too—that he had definitely decided to go ahead.”

  “All his money,” I repeated. “You mean the money from his mother too?”

  “Everything,” said Dr. Kenton-Oakes, “except enough for the bare necessities of living.”

  As I pondered this sensational information, Dr. Kenton-Oakes continued to stare at me. The expression in his eyes had become frankly irritable.

  “I do not wish to speak harshly of the dead, Dr. Westlake. But it is only fair to tell you that I was very much against George’s taking this step. The motives behind it seemed to me to be far from laudable. As you may know, the—the chemical substance upon which our recent research has been based was located by young Roberts in this country and by myself in England. We both isolated it simultaneously, and it is difficult to say which of us owns the distinction of being the first in the field. In any case, George himself had nothing to do with it. Now George always had a burning desire to appear a larger figure in medicine than he was, and he was bitterly jealous that such a discovery should have been made by his assistant. The sole motive behind this dramatic endowment was to consolidate all further research on this substance under his own control so that he could eliminate Roberts from the picture and gradually assume the full credit, the full glory himself.”

  This fitted, of course, with all I had heard about Dr. Hilton. But his motives were not the thing that mattered at the moment.

  I asked: “And the arrangements for this endowment, the arrangements for turning the money over—had they been completed?”

  “Of course not.” Dr. Kenton-Oakes’s mouth moved wryly. “That is why we endeavored to keep you in ignorance of it. He was to have signed the necessary papers on his return to Boston.”

  He shrugged. “I am sure you realize precisely how awkward this is. If George had lived two or three more days, neither Belle nor Emily nor Janie would have received the slightest benefit from his death.”

  He turned to his wife with a certain mocking tenderness.

  “You see, my dear, where your laudable insistence upon honesty has taken you. Now, with Emily and Janie, you share the doubtful honor of having Dr. Westlake think of you as a—murderess.”

  XVI

  Dr. Kenton-Oakes had not overestimated the significance of this new piece of information. It provided a motive that fitted all too neatly into the pattern. Dr. Hilton had originally thought up this scheme for glorifying himself at the expense of his wife and sisters during his ptomaine attack in Boston, and it was during his ptomaine attack that the first attempt had been made on his life. On his arrival in Kenmore he might well have told his old Nanny before he told the others of his plan to ignore family protests and go ahead with the endowment. That would explain why she had been so sure a second attempt would be made. It would also explain why she had threatened the would-be murderer with exposure and why she had been killed.

  Dr. Kenton-Oakes was watching me uneasily. “Well,” he said after a pause, “is there anything else you wish to ask?”

  “That’s about enough for the time being,” I said grimly.

  “I imagine it is.” Dr. Kenton-Oakes smiled an apologetic smile. “I trust you do not find it too unpardonable that we attempted to keep this fact to ourselves?”

  “It’s out now,” I said. “That’s all that matters.”

  “Yes, yes. I suppose that is true.” Dr. Kenton-Oakes rose from the dining table. “Is there perhaps someone else you wish to consult?”

  Both Mrs. Lanchester and Mrs. Kenton-Oakes looked at me.

  “Yes,” I said. “You might ask Vic Roberts to come here.”

  “Certainly,” said Mrs. Lanchester with unbecoming alacrity. She rose, as did her sister. The two of them left the room. Dr. Kenton-Oakes lingered. He hovered for a moment at my side.

  “Dr. Westlake, I trust you will not think me unduly curious. But it is most distressing for us—to have had two murders committed under our roof and to know so cruelly little about them. I understand why you have been trying to discover from us motives for George’s murder. But Nanny—pray what possible reason could anyone have had to kill that irritating but certainly harmless old lady?”

  “She was killed,” I said, “because she knew there had been a previous attempt on Dr. Hilton’s life in Boston.”

  “In Boston?”

  “Yes. Someone tried to kill him during his attack of ptomaine.”

  “Good gracious!” exclaimed Dr. Kenton-Oakes and then added shrewdly: “Just at the time when the question of this endowment first came up. Well, well—” He broke off with a faint cluck. “At least this will be a relief to Belle.”

  “It will?”

  “Naturally.” Dr. Kenton-Oakes blinked at me. “It surely has not escaped your notice that Belle and myself have been in this country only a few days. At the time of George’s ptomaine attack, we were both of us still in England.” His glasses twinkled. “Unless you believe us
capable of some sinister power to poison by telepathic projection, you will assuredly eliminate us as suspects.”

  For some time I had realized the extreme unlikelihood of either of the Kenton-Oakeses being guilty.

  He was watching me brightly for my answer.

  I said: “You’re right, Doctor. At the moment I don’t think either you or your wife has much to worry about.”

  “What a comfort. Frankly I was alarmed at the idea of Belle as a murder suspect. It is a role for which she is not particularly suited. I must put her mind at rest immediately.”

  He hurried almost jauntily out of the room.

  Shortly the door opened again on Victor Roberts. Behind him, gleaming with junk jewelry, came Lisl Stahl. Vic looked sultry and unsure of himself, but Dr. Stahl’s self-possession was as considerable as ever. She stalked to me and sat down at the table immediately opposite me.

  “I come too,” she announced. “Long enough I seet in that dismal room with those miserable dismal girls and vait and vonder. Queeck, tell. That stupid Lanchester voman and her fat sister, do you tweak them by the nose, do you make them admeet they keel their brother?”

  “Nothing quite as dramatic as that,” I said. And then, pointedly: “It was Dr. Roberts I wanted to see, you know.”

  Vic had sat down next to Dr. Stahl. He said: “I told you, Lisl. You’d better scram.”

  “No.” The Austrian toxicologist shook her earrings. “I do not scram. Maybe Dr. Vestlake try to make the case against you. I know he ees clever man; I know you are an eediot. Because you are an eediot, I stay.”

  Vic flushed and muttered: “For God’s sake, Lisl.”

  “I stay.” Dr. Stahl fixed me with a black stare. “Ees okay?”

  Her purposefulness and her candor were disarming. “All right,” I said. “I was going to speak to you later anyhow.”

  “Gut”. She smiled her dazzling smile. “Eet ees for you great vaste of time. Thees I tell you. I do not keel Dr. Heelton and Veek does not keel heem. But thees ees by me fine, for I am mad with curiosity as a peeg. Queeck tell. All the bloody facts.”