“Lay off,” Sidney said.
“Well, yes, if you want to put it that way.”
“And did Edgar appear to be satisfied with that answer? Did the man give his name?” Sidney asked.
“No, the man refused to give his name, but Edgar was perfectly satisfied,” Paget said. “After all, the explanation made complete sense.”
“Not quite,” Sidney said. “The lady who was touring Europe with her husband is back. I have talked to her. She was not the woman witness. Her driver’s license had been stolen and doctored to provide false identification for the woman witness—who has vanished without a trace.”
“I find it odd,” Mrs. Beattie said, “that you did not disclose these facts before.”
“I thought about it very carefully,” Paget said. “But it was so patently obvious that Wes was guilty that I couldn’t see dragging in this sordid little intrigue for the papers to make a sensation of. And since the police had handed Wes over to the psychiatrists, and the psychiatrists assured us that Wes had a perfect insanity defense, it would simply become an irrelevant red herring.”
“Is a red herring ever relevant, I wonder?” Sidney said. “This one might be.”
Claudia had been sitting staring at Paget, and suddenly she burst forth emotionally. “Do you think Edgar would have given up before he met that man, and the woman, face to face?” she said. “If you do, you didn’t know Edgar! He was the most pig-headed man that ever walked. He wouldn’t let anyone stall him off.”
“Well, Claudia, my dear, you are entitled to your opinion, but on this occasion he talked very reasonably, and I think he planned to let the matter drop.”
“And did he alter his will?” she said. “Did he do that? He promised Wes he would find the woman first.”
“Well, no, he hadn’t actually altered his will at the time of his death,” Paget said.
“Too bad, eh, Claudia?” Marcia Paget said, quietly enough that Mrs. Beattie did not hear.
“Then what becomes of Wes’s portion that he can’t inherit?” Sidney asked.
“That,” Paget said with great asperity, “would scarcely classify as being any of your business, Mr. Grant. I really do not see why we have discussed all these private family matters in your presence. And now, unless there is something else?”
“I’ll answer your question, Mr. Grant,” Claudia said. “If either June or Wes predeceased Edgar, or were unable for any other reason to inherit, his or her share was to be divided equally between Edgar’s sisters—Marcia and me. So if you want to make Marcia the murderer, there’s your motive. She’ll get fifty or seventy-five thousand dollars because the will wasn’t changed.” Claudia Beattie giggled horsily and rather affectedly.
“Your little joke is not in the best of taste, Claudia,” Mrs. Beattie said. “Actually, since you have heard so much of our private business, Mr. Grant, you may as well know that Edgar and Marcia were not always on the best of terms. He felt that Marcia was well provided for, and therefore he wished to give Claudia a little additional security. Now, specifically, what have you to suggest?”
Sidney opened his mouth to speak, meaning to divulge the names of Howard Gadwell and Janice Swann Wicklow as the Midtown Motel lovers. But as he glanced at the four faces in the room, another thought struck him, and for a moment he stammered ineffectually.
“Well, just this,” he said at last. “I believe that, with a little research, I could find the names of those two people—the man who called Edgar and the woman who was with him. I think we might show that there was something fishy about the motel business. Then Mr. Ogilvy might check through the other statements made by Wes and see if they could be substantiated. It might alter the whole line of his defense.”
“I think it unlikely, Mr. Grant,” Mrs. Beattie said. “Unless poor Wes pleads insanity, the Crown will concentrate, with ruthless logic, on the presence of those fingerprints and will get a verdict of guilty. All we would achieve would be the introduction of a scandalous element which would please the evening papers immensely. However, my son-in-law will convey this information to Mr. Baldwin Ogilvy, and any decision will be made by him. And we are all very grateful for your kind thought. Betty will let you out.”
To Sidney’s sensitive ear, this sounded like a hint that he should leave, so he arose and went to the hall, where he had left his coat and hat on a high-backed chair. But there was no Betty to let him out, and Ralph Paget appeared and saw him off the premises. His manner was chilly.
As Sidney proceeded along the street, a little dejected at the outcome of his visit, a strange feeling came over him, and he glanced nervously over his shoulder. Then he stalked on again angrily. The delusion that one is being followed, he decided, is the first step toward the full-scale heebie-jeebies. However, the feeling persisted, and he turned around and had a good look. There was, indeed, a female figure some distance behind him, but she did not look at all sinister.
However, when he reached his own house, he stepped inside the iron gate and waited in the shadows, and presently he recognized his pursuer as Betty, the maid. She was hurrying along and looking up anxiously at each house. At Sidney’s house she paused and peered into the darkness, but did not see him.
“Are you, by any chance, looking for me?” Sidney said quietly.
The maid jumped back and screamed at the shock of finding her quarry only four feet away, and then suddenly she ran back in the direction from which she had come. Sidney called after her, but she kept on going. He stood thinking for a moment, then shrugged and went up to bed.
On the Friday following he received a letter on the letterhead of the Superior Trust Company (office of the vice-president and secretary). It said:
Dear Sir:
Your interesting suggestions with reference to the defense of my wife’s nephew have been given due consideration, but the decision is not to alter the plan already adopted.
Mr. Baldwin Ogilvy, Q.C., states that it is a prime objective of the defense to exclude any reference to the previous criminal record of an accused person except as it may come out in the expert evidence of psychiatrists in establishing the history of delusions.
An attempt to prove that there were suspicious circumstances in the matter of the theft conviction would actually weaken the delusion theory, which is the mainstay of the present defense plan.
We, the family of the accused, are most grateful for your unsolicited interest in the case, and we feel that you are entitled to some compensation for any expenses you have incurred. We therefore enclose a check for five hundred dollars ($500.00) on the understanding that you will take no further action in the case and will regard what has taken place as completely confidential.
Yours faithfully
The signature was that of the pin-striped uncle, but the style suggested the influence of the grandmother.
“Miss Semple,” Sidney called out, “is this office badly in need of five hundred smackers?”
“I should say it is,” Miss Semple replied, appearing in the doorway of the private office.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said. “Well, quickly, before I weaken, grab your notebook and take a letter. To Ralph L. Fuss-Paget at the Sacred Trust Company or something; get it off the letterhead. Here goes. Dear Sir, I am most grateful to you for sending me an unsolicited check for five hundred dollars, bracket, repeat sum in figures, close bracket, period. Paragraph. I had no intention of intruding in matters which were not my concern, but having by chance—that’s a lie for you—having by chance come across information concerning Mr. Wesley M. Beattie, I felt it my duty as an officer of the court to place the information in the hands of Mr. Beattie’s counsel. Paragraph. Owing to Mr. Ogilvy’s absence in Ottawa, and to the fact that the case will come up shortly, I took the information direct to the family of the accused. There is, of course, no charge for this service, and I shall feel free to disclose the information I have obtained in any manner I may see fit. Yours faithfully. How’s that, Georgie?”
&
nbsp; “Splendid,” she said. “I didn’t like the tone of Mr. Paget’s letter at all. And I feel sure you are right to tell him what to do with his money—badly as we need it.”
Which brought the case of Wes Beattie and his weird world to an end, Sidney decided, and he thereupon put the whole thing out of his mind and went off to Lake Simcoe for the weekend to fish through the ice with some suitable companions.
But he still couldn’t entirely kill the desire to interview Mrs. Janice Swann Wicklow and find out what had impelled her to give evidence in the police court under a false name.
Five
IN THE YEAR 1908, or some fifty-odd years before Wes Beattie was caught with the goods on him, a crocodile of wretched girls in hideous skirts and middies filed out of an orphanage at Southsea, on the south coast of England, each girl carrying a large hamper, and proceeded to a line of horse-drawn four-wheelers which awaited them. Some hours later a tender fed the girls into the maw of the Cunard liner Lobelia, where they were herded to bunks in the steerage for nine days of misery and seasickness.
From this traumatic experience Betty Martin, one of the orphan band, emerged at a wharf in Montreal, frightened, weeping and homesick for the orphanage which was the only home she had ever known. Ahead of her lay she knew not what. Red Indians, perhaps, with scalping knives. Grizzly bears and timber wolves.
Betty Martin was somehow conducted to Bonaventure Station and deposited in a colonist car which, ten hours later, debouched her on the platform of the old Union Station in Toronto, where the matron in charge of the little group handed her over to a heavy-set man with impressive whiskers.
The heavy-set man collected her box and led her to a carriage, trying to reassure her that all would be well, but poor Betty cried and cried until the man helped her up to sit beside him on the driver’s seat. Shortly afterward they were proceeding at a spanking trot up Jarvis Street with its great, shady horse-chestnut trees and its fine mansions, and Betty began to feel a little happier about coming to the wilds of Canada.
At last she was deposited at the rear entrance to the residence of young Mrs. Charles Beattie, where she curtsied to the cook and was conducted to a garret room all of her own.
At first Betty could not believe her good fortune, being barely fourteen at the time and unskilled in the ways of the world, and she was so happy to have found a good situation that she buckled right down to work in order to give satisfaction to her new mistress, who was a regular queen of a lady, with a cook, a parlormaid, two housemaids and a man who doubled as gardener and coachman.
Betty was the junior among the servants, but with the years her status rose, owing to the departure, one by one, of all the others. In later years a Latvian cook joined the establishment, but she was a daily woman, which, in Betty’s opinion, did not count.
But in all those years Betty never lost her awe of Mrs. Beattie, who was so clever and beautiful and seemed to know even what a body was thinking; and, just as she had been instructed at the orphanage, Betty never put her own opinion against that of her superiors.
For that reason Betty was in a frightful dither on the Sunday morning following Sidney Grant’s visit to the Beattie house, because she had told Mrs. Beattie a lie, and she was planning to break the Rules. She had told Mrs. Beattie that she felt a head cold coming on and didn’t feel she should go to church for fear she might give it to others. Mrs. Beattie accepted the story with her customary calm—secretly suspecting that there was some scrumptious television program which Betty intended to watch, and she let Betty help her with her dressing, regardless of possible microbes or viruses. Mrs. Beattie, someone had once said, didn’t really believe that microbes would move from a servant to a member of the upper class.
And then, as soon as Mr. and Mrs. Paget and Miss Claudia and Mrs. Beattie had been bundled into the Jag and were on their way to the cathedral, Betty embarked on a very bold course indeed. She hurried back to her mistress’s bedroom, seized the pearl-gray telephone with trembling hands and dialed a number. Then she stood waiting, anxiously, shaking her free right hand impatiently. Finally a great relief came over her features and she spoke.
“Oh, Miss June, Miss June,” she said, “I’m so glad I got you before you went out, Miss June. I’ve been trying to get you for ages—in bed? You weren’t up, Miss June? Oh, dear me, I am sorry, Miss June. Oh dear, you just take some aspirins and a nice cup of tea and you’ll soon be right as rain. Miss June, they’ve been having terrible rows, oh, awful—no, not shouting at each other, that’s not their way, Miss June, and you know it. Just speaking sharp and all upset, and it’s about Mr. Wes. Miss June, you were always a one for rows with your aunties. I really said Miss June should be here.…Well, this young lawyer came, Mr. Sidney Grant his name is, and he knows something about Mr. Wes. He thinks maybe Mr. Wes didn’t steal that lady’s purse after all, and he thought that might help with the murder charge. He wanted to tell Mr. Ogilvy, Mr. Wes’s lawyer, but Mr. Paget knew about all these things only he never told anyone except Miss Marcia, and your grandmother was ever so cross with him, and Miss Marcia took his side and of course Miss Claudia took the other side, and they told Mr. Grant that they would tell Mr. Ogilvy all about these things but they never did. Your grandmother said it would serve no useful purpose, so Mr. Paget wrote a letter to Mr. Grant that said one thing and meant another. He made it look as if he’d told Mr. Ogilvy, but he didn’t really though he didn’t actually tell a fib. Very proud of himself he was, and your grandmother said it would do nicely, but Miss Claudia said it was the worst kind of lying because it was so sneaky and Miss Marcia called her a silly old B., right in front of your grandmother. She used the word for lady dog, Miss June. Well, they said that Mr. Wes is safe—they will put him in a lunatic asylum and they won’t hang him—so why stir up a lot of trouble in the newspapers, and Miss Claudia said really who cared what became of poor Mr. Wes so long as the B. family name wasn’t dragged through the mud? And then they really set about her, Miss June. Oh, Miss June, did you ever see those bullfighting pictures at the cinema where gentlemen on horses stick things in the poor bull and at the end the battledore comes along and kills it? Yes, Miss June, mattledore, that’s the word…oh, pardon, matador. Anyway, Mr. Paget and Miss Marcia went at her and at her, and finally your grandmother came in like the—like that head bullfighter and she said: ‘Claudia, your remark was both unkind and uncalled for and was prompted solely by a desire to create trouble, of which we have already had more than enough. The welfare of Wes is the only thought in any of our minds.’ And Miss Claudia started to sniffle the way she does, and she burst out sobbing ‘Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo’ and dashed up to her room and spent the entire evening taking her Girl Guide medals out of their frame and cleaning them.…Miss June, it’s naughty of you to laugh like that.…Well, Miss June, I thought they shouldn’t ought to have sent poor Mr. Grant away like that, so I followed him home, but he took me for a cutpurse and leapt out at me—it gave me such a start. Miss June, he really did jump out, and I ran as if the Old Gentleman himself were after me, and then I didn’t know what to do. Well, I said, Miss June should be here, she would know what to do. Oh, Miss June, I always said you were just like a man, the way you can do things.…Oh, no, no, no, Miss June. I did not mean that. It isn’t the fishing season yet, Miss June, but you know very well you’re very pretty and romantic. Just you wait, and Mr. Right will come along one of these days.…Oh, Miss June, you must not say that—it’s naughty. Mr. Wrong is not more fun than Mr. Right…Well, Miss June, if Mr. Grant can help my Mr. Wes, and he’s your own baby brother, well, I think we ought to find out everything, and the only way is for you to go and see him. See Mr. Grant. Oh, please, please go and see him, Miss June. Mr. Sidney Grant…what’s he like? Well, very handsome. Not like movie actors, but handsome in a nice, wholesome way. No, he is not ugly…Well, quite tall, taller than me…oh, Miss June, he is so over five feet, a lot more. Five foot six at least. Please, please, Miss June, promise me you’ll go and see him? Oh, Miss Ju
ne, Miss June, I knew you would, I knew it, I knew it! I’m so happy, Miss June, but now I must fairly dash and get the beds made.”
Whereupon Betty Martin drew breath and hung up the telephone.
***
Miss Semple’s office was divided in two by a mahogany railing, a relic of a bygone era. Beyond the railing, next to the outer door, stood a row of plain chairs, which were often occupied by a sorry collection of prospective clients who sat shifting uneasily and watching in wonder as Miss Semple’s fingers flew over the typewriter keys.
Miss Semple ruled the waiting clients with the authority of a headmistress, and often, when a client had departed, she seized a spray gun and sweetened the air with pine tar scent. Some of Sidney Grant’s clients went without bathing except at such times as they were herded into showers at the Don Jail or the Mercer Reformatory. Some of the female clients were so drenched with California Poppy or Soir de Paris that their presence was felt long after their departure. Usually there was, among the waiting ones, a worried parent with a truculent teenage boy.
When Sidney Grant arrived at his office on Monday morning, he let himself in by the private entrance and peeped out nervously at the waiting ones on the row of chairs. Instantly his eyebrows shot up, and he pressed the buzzer for Miss Semple. “Things are looking up,” he said. “Beaver coats, yet! Don’t tell me she’s up for dope pushing or hustling?”
“No sir,” Miss Semple said, a trifle stuffily. “The young woman who has so obviously aroused your interest is Miss June Beattie, who wishes to see you about a matter which she doesn’t care to discuss with me.”
The Weird World of Wes Beattie Page 6