The Weird World of Wes Beattie

by John Norman Harris

  There was laughter and applause.

  “But now,” the old lady said, “we all of us are curious as to what actually took place. Although we have heard so much, it is difficult to sort it out, and Mr. Grant has kindly consented to tell us just how this conspiracy came about and how it was defeated. Mr. Grant.”

  When he rose, Sidney discovered that he was slightly more nervous than when he first appeared in the assize court.

  “Well,” he said, “I think we should start at the beginning. Both conspirators have made full confessions. They talked, each trying to blame the other, until the full facts came out. And here they are:

  “Gadwell and Jackson got into a conspiracy. Jackson advanced Gadwell more credit than he should have, and Gadwell let Jackson play the market through his firm—really with bank funds. They were trying to get rich quick, but things went badly until all of a sudden they got worse. The one enterprise which provided Gadwell with a steady income was his blue cinema venture. Suddenly it vanished. The FBI cleaned out the U.S. end of the business. So we find Gadwell facing bankruptcy and Jackson facing something worse. He was probably in deep enough that he would have gone to prison.

  “Then there came a Friday when Gadwell arrived in Jackson’s office at four P.M., hot and angry, because he had missed the tip-off on Minerva Mines. The rumor was out that Minerva had drilled and found rich ore. The stock had climbed from about fifteen cents to over a dollar in the last hour of trading. The official announcement, expected on Saturday morning, would send the stock sky high.

  “Jackson listened with keen interest. Then he told Gadwell that he was holding a sizable block of Minerva as security for a relatively small overdraft. He was in a position to sell the stock and simply deposit the money in the account. Mr. Beattie, whose stock it was, was paralyzed and unlikely to recover. His minor gamblings in the mining market were kept very private. It was more than possible that no one in his family knew that he owned any Minerva.

  “So Gadwell then and there gave him a check, and the sale was back-dated a few days. The account was actually closed out during the late-opening hours of that Friday.

  “Mr. Beattie died, and there was no further trouble. A bank officer questioned the authority of the manager to sell and liquidate the account, and the manager constructed a letter—forged—which satisfied him, and all was well. Gadwell and Jackson made a fortune. They bailed themselves out, and their other enterprises began to prosper.

  “And then, one day, a callow junior in Jackson’s branch walked in with a stale-dated check drawn by his grandfather before his death. Jackson said, ‘Leave it with me.’ He meant to pay the check himself and put a stop to all further questions. But this callow youth turned out to be the grandson of Charles Beattie, and he had come to the branch after his grandfather’s death, without revealing to Jackson who he was.

  “Jackson was terrified. He saw Wes as a spy who had wormed his way into the branch to do a little investigating for the family. But he kept his head. He took the boy out, flattered him, buttered him up and concluded that Wes was completely innocent and unsuspecting. He also discovered that he was—sorry Wes—a congenital liar, and therefore unusually gullible. Jackson made up a sentimental story that wouldn’t impose on an idiot in normal circumstances. But Wes believed it. So far, so good. However, Jackson later found Wes prying into the closed-out account, and he couldn’t get rid of his fears that Wes would, one day, betray the existence of that closed-out account. His fear forced him to act. He wanted to get Wes out of that branch, fast, without appearing to want to.

  “A few days later he was with Gadwell at the mining convention. Gadwell had a girlfriend who would do anything for him. So Jackson told him flatly that they were in the thing together, that Gadwell had to help. Jackson was the Brain. He knew the motel very well—he had had some little intrigues there. Gadwell had never been near it. So Jackson worked out a scheme whereby Wes was lured to the motel. He was driven there by a young Buffalo woman, who immediately afterward left for Buffalo and never returned. He was left standing in the car park holding a woman’s handbag, and his explanation of how he got it was extremely incredible. Wes cared more for credibility than truth. He tried to lie. He told several lies, which made the truth that much more incredible when he got round to telling it.

  “Now all that Jackson hoped for was this: that Wes would be hauled up in police court and remanded. Then the bank would automatically suspend him. In due course the case would be dismissed for lack of evidence, and Wes would go free. But his reputation would have been irreparably damaged. The bank would probably ask him to resign. In any case, he would be out of the way for a while and would have more things to think about than his grandfather’s account.

  “Well, it worked. It appeared to work better than Jackson’s highest hopes. The case was so hopelessly bungled that Wes went to jail, and all appeared to be well. Jackson was able to keep track of events by cultivating the friendship of Edgar Beattie and by pretending sympathy for Wes.

  “It came, therefore, as a nasty shock to learn that Edgar was quietly investigating that theft charge. First of all, Edgar traced the stolen driver’s permit used by Mrs. Leduc. This led to a blind alley. Next he traced a repair bill which was in the possession of the car rental agency where Mrs. Leduc-Wicklow had rented a car. The trail led Edgar Beattie to a man called Mayhew, an old school friend of Gadwell’s. Briefly, our friend Rick Phelan here saw Gadwell and Mayhew in conversation while the car was in his garage awaiting repair, and he told Edgar that Mayhew knew the man he was seeking. Mayhew denied it when Edgar asked him, but phoned to warn Gadwell that a Mr. Edgar Beattie was seeking him. The news unnerved Gadwell, but it terrified Jackson. Edgar, you see, had let him believe that he considered the case closed.

  “The first and worst danger was Mrs. Wicklow, the female conspirator. She was madly in love with Gadwell. She was threatening to come and join him. If Edgar were to discover her, she was almost certain to talk, and the game was up. And so, Murder Number One was planned. It was simple and easy.

  “Gadwell called Mrs. Wicklow and begged her to run away with him. She was to come to Toronto via Ottawa, and he would meet her at the airport. He did, and he drove her straight off, at night, to his little love-nest hideaway in Muskoka. Her body, expertly weighted, was in three hundred feet of cold water before morning. Her disappearance caused no concern to anyone, except her creditors.

  “At about the same time, Jackson told Gadwell to call Edgar and try to palm him off with the marital intrigue story. But Edgar was adamant. He insisted on meeting both Gadwell and the missing woman witness face to face before he stopped searching. He was getting warm—and Mayhew was undependable. Jackson was rich and expecting promotion in the bank. Gadwell was rich. They had already committed one murder. Another was necessary for security. Killing Mayhew would have been stupid. It had to be Edgar, but it was necessary to conceal the motive; the motive would have been a dead giveaway. And so there was born in Jackson’s mind the plan of killing Edgar and framing Wes for the second time. It seemed psychologically sound that Wes should kill his uncle, but it was necessary to act fast. The first thing was to find a place where Wes could be kept out of circulation on the chosen evening. When Mrs. Whitney went to Jackson, her banker, and told him about her forthcoming holiday in England, he saw his chance. He knew the place, and realized it was perfect. So he had Gadwell pose as an English businessman and rent the Whitney apartment. Gadwell does an excellent imitation of an English accent. The rest of the plot developed very naturally from this beginning. A girl was needed to lure Wes. Gadwell’s old film-making connection proved useful. A girl was imported from Buffalo—a girl whom no one would miss. And Gadwell then called Edgar to make a date. He promised to go to Edgar’s apartment on that Friday, taking with him the woman—Mrs. Wicklow, alias Leduc. In turn he made Edgar promise to be alone. Edgar was the type of honorable sporting gent who would keep such a promise without fear or suspicion. Jackson knew that, and on the day when
he is hanged, that is something to remember, in case you are feeling overly sympathetic.

  “Well, one thing remained: to plant some evidence at the scene of the crime which would incriminate Wes. Planting ashtrays or whisky glasses bearing the desired fingerprints is too easy. Such things can be carried in by the murderer. Jackson wanted something that seemed fixed and immovable. He knew Edgar’s apartment. He had noted the old-fashioned telephone. Now he made a visit and studied it carefully. It was perfect for the purpose. Gadwell had a fine collection of old phones. One of them was selected and flecked with paint to counterfeit the real telephone in Edgar’s apartment.

  “There remained the problem of entry. Again Jackson’s facile brain provided an answer. He knew Edgar’s habits. Edgar kept all his keys in one container—car keys and all. Jackson invited Edgar to lunch, just before Edgar’s last business trip, at a club on St. Clair Avenue, where there is a members’ parking lot. He got Edgar to drive him up in Edgar’s car, and told him to leave the keys in the car in case the attendant wanted to move it. Gadwell drove in after them, parked in the adjoining space and removed the keys—except for the ignition key. He took them to a hardware store and had duplicates made, then replaced the originals in the car, long before Edgar and Jackson had finished their lunch. On his next visit—that same evening—Jackson was able to ascertain which of Edgar’s keys was the apartment key, and a duplicate was made to be planted on Wes by the decoy girl.

  “Now came the telephone flimflam, which can be called Jackson’s masterpiece. On the Friday morning, the morning of the day when Edgar was to be murdered, the decoy girl from Buffalo was stationed in the Whitney apartment. She called Edgar’s number. The housekeeper answered. The girl told her she had won free dancing lessons—a common come-on on the telephone. She kept on talking until the old lady hung up. But the girl did not hang up. Therefore, Edgar’s telephone was dead. Within minutes, Gadwell appeared, posing as a telephone repairman. He said that someone had reported the telephone out of order. The housekeeper was puzzled, but tested the line and found that it was dead. So Gadwell, pretending to repair it, removed it and replaced it with a carefully doctored replica.

  “He departed, taking the genuine telephone with him, and he installed it in the hall of the Whitney apartment, having carefully equipped it with a false number plate. Its real number plate had been inserted in the front of the substitute telephone at the Beattie apartment.

  “All was now in readiness. The decoy girl had met Wes and had made a date with him. Never mind how. Her approach was not subtle, but what woman ever needs to be subtle in laying snares for a man?”

  There were cries of “Shame!” but Sidney grinned and disregarded them.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “it went like clockwork, to coin a phrase. The girl fetched Wes home, without letting him know where he was. She got him to dial a number—he thought it was the number of a drugstore—to get his fingerprints on the telephone. She took him to another room in the apartment and engaged him in intellectual conversation while the technically competent Gadwell switched phones, then walked quickly to Edgar’s apartment, carefully carrying Edgar’s phone in a Gladstone bag. He entered the front door—using the key—without meeting anyone. He walked upstairs, and let himself in without a sound. He had oiled the hinge and the lock that very morning while posing as a telephone repairman. He was armed with a revolver equipped with a silencer, ready to shoot Edgar. But Jackson had told him about the blackthorn stick in the vestibule, and Gadwell had seen it that morning. It was much better for the purpose.

  “The housekeeper was in bed, as she usually was at that hour. Edgar, who never knew what it was to be frightened, was sitting with his back to the door. Gadwell seized the stick, took two quick strides and finished him. Then, with a speed born of practice, he changed the telephones.

  “The housekeeper had heard the blow, but wondered if it were not a sound effect in an adult Western. She lay listening, until she heard Gadwell dialing—calling the Whitney apartment to tell the decoy girl to get rid of Wes. The decoy girl, of course, had only to tell Wes that she had been warned that her husband was in town. When she heard the dial, the old lady called out ‘Edgar!’ There was no reply. So she slowly, painfully, shuffled to the living room and found the body. By that time Gadwell was nearly back to the Whitney apartment. If she had arrived on the scene too soon, she would certainly have been struck down without compunction by the good Mr. Gadwell.

  “Now all that remained was to meet the decoy girl and invite her for a fabulous weekend in Muskoka as a reward for her good work. She knew too much. So she joined Mrs. Wicklow in the depths of Lake Muskoka. Unfortunate girls of her type are the easiest murder victims. Nobody misses them. Blackmailers are also easy victims, if they are incautious enough to meet their victims in a private place. The revolver with the silencer had been saved for another victim—the parking lot attendant who tried to shake down High Grade Howie Gadwell.

  “Once again Wes cooperated. He saw that his story was thin, and he tried to improve it, not realizing that the truth, however improbable, will stand every test, whereas lies can be broken down. In his highly upset state, he told his stories in such extravagant language that he convinced even trained psychiatrists that he was mentally deranged instead of just stupid. Again, my apologies, Wes, old boy, but you said you wanted me to give it straight.

  “Now then, you no doubt want to hear the modest recital of my own spectacular achievement. How can I resist your entreaties? Well, I heard about the case at a discussion group where some earnest souls were trying to improve the social aspects of the treatment of young offenders. I was struck by one thing: the fact that twice Wes had told stories which were incredible, then had floundered into other lies and had finally ended up with something utterly fantastic. I really had the answer then and there, but I was too stupid to believe it without proof. The answer was that Wes had retreated from reasonably facile lies, in each case, to the incredible truth and that his enemies—or rather his enemy, Jackson—knowing his weakness, had put him in a position—twice—where the truth was almost unbelievable, confident that Wes would make it completely unbelievable by trying to edit and tailor it.

  “And yet I was struck by something else. Weird as Wes’s stories were, they were so wispy that they were difficult to disprove in a positive way. The only solid thing I could see was this: he claimed that the woman witness, who had testified that Wes had stolen her purse, had disappeared. Find her, prove her bona fides, and the whole structure would collapse. So I set out to find her. I followed the trail Edgar had followed. But I was luckier. I found Mrs. Ledley and was able to eliminate her once and for all. I found Phelan. I found Mayhew. But then—not having been murdered—I found Gadwell. Mayhew had told our friend Phelan that Gadwell was an old high school hockey teammate, more or less. Through a high school yearbook I traced Gadwell. Further research gave me the name of his female accomplice—Mrs. Wicklow.

  “I brought this information to this very room. But Wes’s own family were so convinced that he had killed his uncle that they were loath to make use of it. I went away beaten. Then there arose a heroine. Betty Martin is not the boldest person on earth, but love conquers all. Betty had heard my story—don’t ask how. She felt sure it would help her Mr. Wes, to whom she had told bedtime stories in his childhood. In spite of her painful shyness, she followed me to my lair, but she was so startled when she caught me that she ran away home. No dishonor to her. She knew a bold, brazen hussy who would face anyone, so she called her and asked her to tackle me. So, after some ethical convolutions, I became Wes’s counsel, with the kind blessings of the very distinguished counsel who, up till that moment, had been representing the lad.

  “We had the bare bones of a defense, and we went to the assize court with it. But the evidence of Wes’s fingerprints on that telephone appeared to be utterly damning—until a happy chance revealed that the telephone had been tampered with just before the murder. Then, in the nick, so to speak, of
time, I stopped to consider: Could Wes have been telling the literal truth? Had he been lured to an apartment? He had described the apartment in minute detail in a taped interview under drugs to Dr. Heber. I listened to the tape. From it, I got the telephone number of the drugstore he claimed to have called from the apartment. His unconscious mind had preserved it intact. I traced the number. It was the number of the Whitney apartment. If you want to be sure of getting a busy line, call your own number. I visited the Whitneys. Their apartment exactly fitted Wes’s description of the decoy apartment. At first I drew an incorrect conclusion—but then, when I discovered that the Whitneys had rented their apartment through Jackson, and that Jackson had been Wes’s old boss, I thought again, and very little research turned up the whole vicious story.

  “So that was it. Wes has been shaken to the roots. He is now painfully practicing telling the literal truth all the time. He dare not allow himself even the modest ration of social lies which all of us employ. So don’t ask him how he likes your new hairdo. He might tell you. He is now passing rich, but he is working off some high school subjects and hopes to go to university on the coast next fall. My bet is that he will make out okay. He has authorized me to publish here and now his confession that during his black period he had borrowed all the savings of his beloved Betty, and that, if he hadn’t cleaned her out, she would have lent him the money he needed at the time of that first unhappy frame-up. I hardly need to say that restoration has been made in full. But I should at this time state that Mrs. Beattie has granted to Betty Martin a retirement allowance which, if I had it, would keep me away from anything looking like work from now on. Wes, for his part, has given Betty an all-expense tour of England and the continent to celebrate her retirement and has arranged for her friend Nelly, who has worked a few doors from here for fifty years, to accompany her. Wes is aware that this is in no way a generous arrangement. He knows that it is simple justice.