The Penguin Pool Murder (The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

  “Letting them? You may be a policeman, Inspector, but you don’t know children. As long as I tried to keep them away from the gruesome sight, nothing in the world would make them go, but as soon as they heard the officers order everybody to stay, they lit out of here as tight as they could go. Besides it was lunch time. Don’t worry, however, for I can produce them for you at Jefferson School any weekday.”

  “Okay, then. Your full name?”

  “Hildegarde Martha Withers.”

  “Address?”

  “One-eleven West Seventy-sixth Street. I share an apartment there with two other teachers.”

  “Occupation?”

  “At present, answering foolish questions. Young man, I told you I was a teacher.”

  “Why did you come here today?”

  “To show a class through the Aquarium. We do it every year.”

  “Acquainted with the deceased?”

  “Saw him for the first time in the tanks, today.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About one o’clock today.”

  “Tell us what you saw and what you did.”

  “My attention was called to the tank by one of my pupils, Isidore Marx, who noticed the strange behavior of the penguins. As we watched, we saw the body slip into the tank. Then I called the police.” Miss Withers smiled faintly. “They got here in fifteen minutes.”

  “Then it would have been possible for a man to have slipped out of that door and escaped while you were calling the police?”

  “It would not.” Miss Withers smiled again. “Because I sent one of my pupils to turn in the alarm, and I stayed right there in front of the tank till you got there, Inspector.”

  “Hmm, you seem sure enough of that. Notice anything else that might have bearing on this case?”

  “Nothing except what the Lester woman here said when she saw the body of her husband. ‘What have we done?’ and you already know that.”

  “By any chance, did you notice the expression on Seymour’s face here when he came to the tank with the Director and saw the body there?” Piper leaned forward. “Answer this question carefully. Think!”

  “Yes, I did notice it. I made it my business to notice things like that. Mr. Seymour … well, he looked frightened … and …”

  “And what?”

  “And surprised, surprised and hurt is about the only way I can express how he looked.” Miss Withers kept on. “Inspector, he didn’t look guilty, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Criminals never do except in stories,” said Piper coldly. “This is just another mawkish triangle story of the beautiful, idle wife, the busy husband, and the young, handsome friend….”

  He walked across the long room, his hands locked behind his back. “That’s enough for now, Miss Withers. I may ask you to repeat that before a stenographer.” He whirled on Seymour, suddenly.

  “You I’ll take next,” said the detective. The young lawyer was resolute, though slightly pale. He gave his name, and a residence in Tudor City, without hesitation.

  “Occupation?”

  “Member of the bar, State of New York, since 1926. Junior member of the firm of Billings, Billings, and Seymour.”

  “Acquainted with the deceased?”

  “Very slightly. I attended his wedding to Gwen … Mrs. Lester … some years ago. Four years this June, to be exact.”

  “That’s the last time you saw him until today? Then you were a friend of only part of the Lester family, I take it?”

  Philip Seymour looked at the Inspector, and his eyes were hard. “You ought to know better than that, Piper. I can’t be angered into anything. I have nothing to conceal. I was in love with Gwen Lester once. She chose another man, which was quite within her rights, and I attended the wedding. That was the last time I saw Gwen Lester until today.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t give a damn whether you believe it or not. It happens to be true.”

  “And after all these years of true love smoldering and so forth, you made a date with her in this unromantic spot?” Piper waved at the mouldering walls of the Aquarium.

  Seymour shook his head. “Let me start at the beginning,” he said. “When I reached my office this morning, which is about four blocks from here up Broadway, I found that Mrs. Lester had called me twice. The second time she had left her number, so I called back. Gwen was in trouble, she told me. She had been crying, I could tell. It had been rumored that the Lesters were not happy, but this was the first direct word of it that I had had. She said she wanted to talk to me, for I was one of the few real friends she had. She wanted my advice about … about a legal matter.”

  “Which was?” Piper kept on relentlessly.

  “Gerald Lester was a jealous husband, and more than that a beastly cruel one. She wanted my advice about a divorce.”

  “Are you a divorce lawyer?”

  “Our firm does not specialize in divorce, no. We are corporate lawyers.”

  “Why did she not come to your office in the usual way?”

  “I suggested it, but she was deathly afraid of what her husband would do if he found out. Gerald, she said, had been hit heavily in the market crash last month and his disposition was worse than ever. For the same reason she vetoed my suggestion of a hotel lobby. She was afraid that we’d be seen there. Finally I mentioned the Aquarium. I drop down here at noon sometimes to loaf around the tanks where it’s cool, and think things out. And it’s near the office. So we met here at twelve o’clock. She told me the whole story of her marital trouble.”

  Piper turned to Gwen, whose soft dark eyes made no appreciable impression on him. “Is this the truth so far, Mrs. Lester?” Gwen hesitated, and then turned to Costello with a wordless question. He nodded.

  “Yes, it’s true,” she said.

  Piper frowned. “I don’t know who you are, my friend, but I asked that question of Mrs. Lester. In what capacity are you advising her?”

  “As her lawyer,” said Costello smilingly. “I offered my services a few minutes ago, and was retained.”

  “Then wait till this case comes to court,” said Piper unsympathetically. “In the meantime the counsel for the defense will please get the hell out of the way.” Costello with a slight bow moved a few feet away from Gwen.

  “We’ll go on with you, Seymour. Where were you standing when Mrs. Lester told you her troubles?”

  “We moved around, so that we would not seem to be anything but ordinary sightseers. The place was nearly deserted, it being the lunch hour. Then it happened. About half past twelve, I should say, Gerald Lester suddenly confronted us. We were standing then in the little corner under the stair, in front of the penguin tank. We were … perhaps a little close together. Lester was at once certain that he had discovered an assignation. I don’t know how he found we were there unless he had a detective shadowing his wife. Anyway, he accused me of every crime on the calendar, including breaking up his home and …”

  “And seducing his wife?”

  Philip looked at Gwen, who this time avoided his eye. “Yes, that too.”

  “Which wasn’t, of course, the truth?”

  “It wasn’t the truth. And I’ll thank you to be a gentleman, Inspector.”

  Piper sighed. “I’d have more time to observe niceties of conduct if you people wouldn’t go around drowning each other.” It was as near as he had ever come to making an apology. “Go on.”

  “He was beastly abusive, and threatening. Then, without giving me a chance to say yes or no, he lunged on me. There was nothing for me to do but defend myself. Gerald Lester was a half-back at Princeton, and he kept himself in rather good condition, at least until a year or so ago. I was studying a bit of the manly art, you know, when Lester was plunging the line at school, and by a lucky twist I caught him one on the button just in time. If I’d have got into his clutch he might have broken me in two. He went down and stayed down. It was a knockout. I kept Gwen from screaming….”

  �
�Yes, go on.”

  “Well, as luck would have it, nobody had seen us. We were in that little corner under the stair, as I told you. The battle had lasted but a moment, and if you noticed that corner is hidden from most of the rotunda by some cases of stuffed exhibits, swordfish and the like. The guard was near the door, and I could hear the voices of a lot of children asking questions on the upper balcony. Then I noticed that the door beside me was ajar….

  “A man thinks quickly in emergencies like that. I had to get Gwen Lester out of the place before there was a hue and cry, and before her husband came to his senses. It would have been a terrible scandal, and killed her father, who is a retired partner in her husband’s brokerage firm. So I got the idea of hiding the unconscious man inside the door that led to the tanks … though I didn’t know where it led, then.”

  He stopped for breath, and only the scratching of a pencil broke the stillness. Piper glanced around the room. “Who’s making that racket?”

  Miss Withers showed him a scribbled page of shorthand notes. “I’m taking this stuff down in case you want it, Inspector.”

  He frowned, and then shrugged his shoulders. “Not a bad idea. Go on, Seymour.”

  “I told Gwen to hurry away, and to get to the door. She was to wait for me there as if nothing had happened. I knew that her husband would come to his senses in a few minutes, and I hoped that he would be cooled off enough to go away quietly without raising the alarm. Those few minutes would give us time to make plans for Gwen. She couldn’t go home, you understand. So I did it.”

  “You did what?”

  “I carried Lester inside the door, while Gwen walked toward the door. After I got him inside I found that there wasn’t room to put him down anywhere except up the steps and on the runway. So I laid him there.” Seymour’s eyes wandered toward Gwen…. “Then I …”

  “Then? I’ll tell you what you did, Seymour. You saw that you had the inconvenient husband in your power. You hoped, as fools always hope, that it would be passed off somehow as an accident. Maybe you thought that it would be blamed on drunkenness when they found him dead. Anyway, you shoved him down into the water, you held his head under until it bubbled for the last time … and was still….”

  Piper’s voice was high, staccato…. “You murdered an unconscious, defenseless man, Seymour….”

  But the young lawyer shook his head. “I didn’t do it, Inspector. I didn’t kill him. If he was in the water he must have fallen there, or someone else pushed him in. I left him unconscious, but already beginning to breathe loudly, and I hurried out. Then I walked up the stair and across the upper balcony to join Mrs. Lester, after a few minutes, at the main entrance. But we were suddenly nabbed by this well-meaning idiot of a Hemingway here, who dragged us into his office … and you know the rest.”

  “Don’t give me that line of slush.” Piper was insistent. “You killed him, Seymour. You had the opportunity, you had the motive. You held him under the water with your two hands, as cruel a murder as I ever came upon. This has sash-weights beat a mile.”

  “Beg pardon, young man, but I think he didn’t. Anyway, not in the manner you think,” Miss Withers was bold enough to cut in. “Because if you remember, I saw the body fall into the water, and there was no one holding it under. Besides, I never left the tank after that, and no one came out the door beside me.” Miss Withers pointed her umbrella. “Inspector, this boy here isn’t the kind of a person to commit a murder like that!”

  “Hooey,” said Piper. “He did it all right. He’ll confess it before we get through with him. All right for now, Seymour. I’ll have some questions to ask you later, when we’re alone with a few of the boys.” The Inspector turned to Gwen. She had waited for this.

  “And as for you, Mrs. Lester! What a story you’re going to have to tell in the witness chair! You’re an accessory before and after the fact, at the very least. We sent a woman to the electric chair here in New York State only a short time ago. Maybe you saw the pictures in the paper? It’s a bad death to die, Mrs. Lester. We’ll be easy on you if you come clean. The woman who roasted was another woman who didn’t get along with her husband! Your story doesn’t wash, Mrs. Lester. You’ve been seeing Mr. Seymour quite often lately, haven’t you?”

  Gwen’s head whirled. In all this maelstrom only one rock was steady, and that was the encouraging, friendly face of the stranger, Costello, across the room. Even Phil had failed her now. He didn’t even look at her. Did he blame her? But she had to answer.

  “Yes … no … how … no….” She didn’t know what she was answering, nor did she care. It was all a nightmare, every bit a nightmare. Everything that had happened since her marriage to Gerald Lester was a nightmare….

  “All right, Mrs. Lester. Just tell the truth, that’s all. Just the truth.” Piper’s voice was suddenly soft, and comforting. “You never got over being in love with Mr. Seymour, did you? Even though you married another man? That’s nothing to be ashamed of, Mrs. Lester. And there’s no need for denying what we all know. Tell me, aren’t you in love with Mr. Seymour?”

  Gwen clutched her handbag. “God … I … I don’t know! I can’t answer that. I can’t answer anything!” Hysterically, she tried to rise.

  Piper pressed his advantage. “What do you think a woman ought to do if she is tied to a man she hates, a man who frightens and abuses her?”

  “She ought … she ought to get rid of him … get away from him, so he can never touch her again….” Gwen answered with a voice ringing, before she could catch the warning glance that Costello shot her.

  Piper did not smile. “And you feared and hated your husband, didn’t you? His death would mean freedom for you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Look here!” Costello leaped to his feet. “Mrs. Lester doesn’t have to answer these questions. If she is under arrest she cannot be forced to testify, and if she isn’t she can plead the right to advice of counsel before answering. You can’t do this to her, Piper!”

  “Sit down,” said Piper. “I was just trying to get at the truth of the matter. It will go better with Mrs. Lester if she will come clean. Let me put the question another way….” Gwen cowered.

  “Wait a minute,” interrupted Philip Seymour. “You win, Piper. There isn’t any need to go any further. I’ll confess to the murder of Gerald Lester. I feared and hated him too, and I killed him.”

  Gwen rose to her feet, and her face showed a battle of emotions. But Costello motioned her to sit down.

  “I killed Lester,” said the young lawyer again. “Nobody else was mixed up in it but me.”

  The room seemed filled with an audible sigh that welled from the hearts of the dozen people prisoned there. This was a letdown.

  “Okay,” said Piper. He was a different Inspector now that he had won his point. “I had a notion that you’d come clean, Seymour. Spill the story. How did you kill him, and why?”

  “Well, just like you said. I got his body there on the runway, and I … I …”

  “You thought how easy it would be to push him into the tank while he was knocked out, is that it?”

  “That’s it. I pushed him into the water, and held his head under till he stopped breathing. There were a lot of … of bubbles for a while, and then they stopped coming and I knew he was dead. I left him there and went to join Mrs. Lester….”

  “Buy why did you kill him?”

  “Why does anybody kill? Because I hated him. Because he was a beast to his wife, and because he had attacked me, shouting words that I don’t let any man call me, that’s why. I killed him and I’m glad of it. I dried my hands and … slipped out of the door….”

  “Did you see anyone there? Miss Withers or anybody?”

  Seymour shook his head. “She must be mistaken in what she says about seeing the body slide into the tank. When I came out no one was there. I hurried to the door!”

  “Just a minute. Where were the penguins when you killed Lester by holding his head under water?” Miss Withers plunged in before Piper
could stop her.

  “The penguins? I don’t know. They must have got out of their tank. Yes, I remember now. They were up on the runway, squawking to beat the band. Yes, that’s it. I slipped away to the door. Gwen wasn’t there, but a minute later she joined me from where she’d been hiding behind the exhibits at the western end of the building. Then Hemingway saw us at the door, and recognized her….”

  “You didn’t know him?” Piper took back the center of the stage.

  “I didn’t know him, and neither did Mrs. Lester. But he remembered her from somewhere, and insisted that we come in here and see his office. We couldn’t refuse, for fear of attracting notice. So we went in.”

  “But wasn’t Mrs. Lester afraid that someone would tie up her being there with the fact that her husband’s body would be found in the same building? Hemingway would remember….”

  “You forgot that … that she didn’t know her husband was dead, and I didn’t have time to tell her….”

  Piper nodded slowly. “Well, that seems to clear the matter up. You’ll sign a confession to this effect? If you don’t, I’ve got a dozen witnesses to the oral confession.”

  “Oh, I’ll sign it all right. I killed him, and I’ll confess.”

  “He’s confessing all right, but I don’t feel so sure that he killed him,” put in Miss Withers. “I saw what I saw, young man!”

  “It’s no use, Miss Withers. The prisoner himself refuses to accept the loophole you offer him. It’s nice of you and all that to perjure yourself to save a nice-looking boy from the chair, but under the circumstances….”

  “When you know me better, Inspector, you’ll realize that I neither lie nor do I go out of my way to help lawbreakers, nice-looking or otherwise. But I’ve taught school long enough to know when anybody is telling the truth or not, and Philip Seymour is holding something back. He’s shielding someone—and I know who it is!”

  Everybody looked at Gwen, who turned her head and stared out of the window toward the sky, criss-crossed by the flight of screaming gulls.