The Unicorn Trade

by Poul Anderson

  And yet—Yamamura got to his feet. He was not unacquainted with death, he had looked through a number of its many doors and the teachings of the Buddha made it less terrible to him than to most. But something was wrong here. The sense of that crawled along his nerves.

  Perhaps only the dregs of the nightmare from which Cardynge had roused him.

  Yamamura wanted his pipe in the worst way. But better not smoke before the police had seen what was here … as a matter of form, if nothing else. Form was something to guard with great care, on this night when chaos ran loose beyond the walls and the world stood unmeasurably askew within them.

  He began to prowl. A wastepaper basket was placed near the couch. Struck by a thought—his logical mind functioned swiftly and unceasingly, as if to weave a web over that which lay below—he crouched and looked in. Only two items. The housekeeper must have emptied the basket today, and Cardynge tossed these in after he got back from his office. He wouldn’t have observed the holiday; few establishments did, and he would have feared leisure. Yamamura fished them out.

  One was a cash register receipt from a local liquor store, dated today. The amount shown corresponded to the price of a fifth such as stood on the table. Lord, but Cardynge must have been drunk, half out of his skull, when he prepared that last draught for himself!

  The other piece was an envelope, torn open by hand, addressed here and postmarked yesterday evening in Berkeley. So he’d have found it in his mail when he came home this afternoon. In the handwriting of the letter, at the upper left corner, stood Lisette Cardynge and the apartment address her husband had given Yamamura.

  The detective dropped them back into the basket and rose with a rather forced shrug. So what? If anything, this clinched the matter. One need merely feel compassion now, an obligation to find young Bayard—no, not even that, since the authorities would undertake it—so, no more than a wish to forget the whole business. There was enough harm and sorrow in the world without brooding on the unamendable affairs of a near stranger.

  Only … Cardynge had wakened him, helplessly crying for help. And the wrongness would not go away.

  Yamamura swore at himself. What was it that looked so impossible here? Cardynge’s telephoning? He’d spoken strangely, even—or especially—for a man at the point of self-murder. Though he may have been delirious. And certainly I was half asleep, in a morbid state, myself. I could have mixed his words with my dreams, and now be remembering things he never said.

  The suicide, when Cardynge read Lisette’s ultimate refusal?

  Or the refusal itself? Was it in character for her? Yamamura’s mind twisted away from the room, two days backward in time.

  He was faintly relieved when she came to his office. Not that the rights or wrongs of the case had much to do with the straightforward task of tracing Bayard and explaining why he should return. But Yamamura always preferred to hear both sides of a story.

  He stood up as she entered. Sunlight struck through the window, a hurried shaft between clouds, and blazed on her blonde hair. She was tall and slim, with long green eyes in a singularly lovely face, and she walked like a cat. “How do you do?” he said. Her hand lingered briefly in his before they sat down, but the gesture looked natural. He offered her a cigaret from a box he kept for visitors. She declined.

  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Cardynge?” he asked, with a little less than his normal coolness.

  “I don’t know,” she said unhappily. “I’ve no right to bother you like this.”

  “You certainly do, since your husband engaged me. I suppose he is the one who told you?”

  “Yes. We saw each other yesterday, and he said he’d started you looking for his son. Do you think you’ll find him?”

  “I have no doubts. The man I sent to Seattle called in this very morning. He’d tracked down some of Bayard’s associates there, who told him the boy had gone to Chicago. No known address, but probably as simple a thing as an ad in the paper will fetch him. It’s not as if he were trying to hide.”

  She stared out of the window before she swung those luminous eyes back and said, “How can I get you to call off the search?”

  Yamamura chose his words with care. “I’m afraid you can’t. I’ve accepted a retainer.”

  “I could make that up to you.”

  Yamamura bridled. “Ethics forbid.”

  One small hand rose to her lips. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Please don’t think I’m offering a bribe. But—” She blinked hard, squared her shoulders, and faced him head on. “Isn’t there such a thing as a higher ethic?”

  “Well-ll … what do you mean, Mrs. Cardynge?”

  “I suppose Aaron praised Bayard at great length. And quite honestly, too, from his own viewpoint. His only son, born of his first wife, who must have been a dear person. How could Aaron see how evil he is?”

  Yamamura made a production of charging his pipe. “I hear there was friction between you and the boy,” he said.

  A tired little smile tugged at her mouth. “You put it mildly. And of course I’m prejudiced. After all, he wrecked my marriage. Perhaps ‘evil’ is too strong a word. Nasty? And that may apply to nothing but his behavior toward me. Which in turn was partly resentment at my taking his mother’s place, and partly—” Lisette stopped.

  “Go on,” said Yamamura, low.

  Color mounted in her cheeks. “If you insist. I think he was in love with me. Not daring to admit it to himself, he did everything he could to get me out of his life. And out of his father’s. He was more subtle than a young man ought to be, though. Insinuations; provocations; disagreements carefully nursed into quarrels—” She gripped the chair arms. “Our marriage, Aaron’s and mine, would never have been a simple one to make work. The difference in age, outlook, everything. I’m not perfect either, not easy to live with. But I was trying. Then Bayard made the job impossible for both of us.”

  “He left months ago,” Yamamura pointed out.

  “By that time the harm was done, even if he didn’t realize it himself.”

  “Does it matter to you any more what he does?”

  “Yes. I—Aaron wants me to come back.” She looked quickly up. “No doubt he’s told you otherwise. He has a Victorian sense of privacy. The sort of man who maintains appearances, never comes out of his shell, until at last the pressure inside gets too great and destroys him. But he’s told me several times since I left that I can come back any time I want.”

  “And you’re thinking of doing so?”

  “Yes. Though I can’t really decide. It would be hard on us both, at best, and nearly unbearable if we fail again. But I do know that Bayard’s presence would make the thing absolutely impossible.” She clasped her purse with a desperate tightness. “And even if I decide not to try, if I get a divorce, the lies Bayard would tell—Please, Mr. Yamamura! Don’t make a bad matter worse!”

  The detective struck match to tobacco and did not speak until he had the pipe going. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can’t decree that a father should not get in touch with his son. Even if I did resign from the case, he can hire someone else. And whatever happens, Bayard won’t stay away forever. Sooner or later you’ll have to face this problem. Won’t you?”

  The bright head bent. “I’m sorry,” Yamamura said again.

  She shook herself and jumped to her feet. “That’s all right,” she whispered. “I see your point. Of course. Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage. Thanks for your trouble.” He could scarcely rise before she was gone.

  The doorbell jarred Yamamura to awareness. As he opened for the patrolman, the storm screamed at him. “Hi, Charlie,” he said in a mutter. “You didn’t have a useless trip. Wish to hell you had.”

  Officer Moffat hung up his slicker. “Suicide?”

  “Looks that way. Though—Well, come see for yourself.”

  Moffat spoke little before he had examined what was in the living room. Then he said, “Joe told me this was a client of yours and he called you tonight. What’d he want
?”

  “I don’t know.” Yamamura felt free, now, to console himself with his pipe. “His words were so incoherent, and I was so fogged with sleep myself, that I can’t remember very well. Frankly, I’m just as glad.”

  “That figures for a suicide. Also the Dear John letter. What makes you so doubtful?”

  Yamamura bit hard on his pipestem. The bowl became a tiny campfire over which to huddle. “I can’t say. You know how it is when you’re having a dream, and something is gruesomely wrong but you can’t find out what, only feel that it is? That’s what this is like.”

  He paused. “Of course,” he said, seeking rationality, “Cardynge and his wife told me stories which were somewhat inconsistent. She claimed to me he wanted her back; he denied it. But you know how big a liar anyone can become when his or her most personal affairs are touched on. Even if he spoke truth at the time, he could have changed his mind yesterday. In either case, he’d have gotten drunk when she refused in this note, and if it turned out to be an unhappy drunk he could have hit the absolute bottom of depression and killed himself.”

  “Well,” Moffat said, “I’ll send for the squad.” He laid a handkerchief over the phone and put it to his ear. “Damn! Line must be down somewhere. I’ll have to use the car radio.”

  Yamamura remained behind while the policeman grumbled his way back into the rain. His eyes rested on Cardynge’s face. It was so recently dead that a trace of expression lingered, but nothing he could read. As if Cardynge were trying to tell him something.… The thought came to Yamamura that this house was now more alive than its master, for it could still speak.

  Impulsively, he went through the inner door and snapped on the light. Dining room, with a stiff, unused look; yes, the lonely man doubtless ate in the kitchen. Yamamura continued thither.

  That was a fair-sized place, in cheerful colors which now added to desolation. It was as neat as everything else. One plate, silverware, and coffee apparatus stood in the drainrack. They were dry, but a dishtowel hung slightly damp. Hm … Cardynge must have washed his things quite shortly before he mixed that dose. Something to do with his hands, no doubt, a last effort to fend off the misery that came flooding over him. Yamamura opened the garbage pail, saw a well-gnawed T-bone and the wrappers from packages of frozen peas and French fries. Proof, if any were needed, that Cardynge had eaten here, doubtless been here the whole time. The refrigerator held a good bit of food; one ice tray was partly empty. Yamamura went on to the bathroom and bedrooms without noticing anything special.

  Moffat came back in as the other man regained the living room. “They’re on their way,” he said. “I’ll stick around here. You might as well go on home, Trig.”

  “I suppose so.” Yamamura hesitated. “Who’ll notify his wife?”

  Moffat regarded him closely. “You’ve met her, you said, and know something about the case. Think you’d be able to break the news gently?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not. Anyhow, looks as if I’ll have to tell his son, when we find him.”

  Moffat tilted back his cap and rubbed his head. “Son left town? We’ll have to interview him ourselves. To tie up loose ends, make sure he really was away and so forth. Not that—Huh?”

  Yamamura picked his pipe off the floor.

  “What’s the matter, Trig?”

  “Nothing.” The detective wheeled about, stared at the body on the couch and then out the window into night.

  “Uh, one thing,” Moffat said. “Since you do know a little about her. Think we should notify Mrs. Cardynge at once, or let her sleep till morning?”

  It yelled within Yamamura.

  “I mean, you know, theoretically we should send someone right off,” Moffat said, “but even if she has left him, this is going to be a blow. Especially since she’s indirectly respon—”

  Yamamura snatched Moffat’s arm. “Yes!” he cried. “Right away! Can you get a man there this instant?”

  “What?”

  “To arrest her!”

  “Trig, are you crazy as that stiff was?”

  “We may already be too late. Get back to your radio!”

  Moffat wet his lips. “What do you mean?”

  “The purse. Hers. The evidence will be there, if she hasn’t had time to get rid of it—By God, if you don’t, I’ll make a citizen’s arrest myself!”

  Moffat looked into the dilated eyes a full second before he pulled himself loose. “Okay, Trig. What’s her address again?” Yamamura told him and he ran off without stopping to put on his coat.

  Yamamura waited, pipe smoldering in his hand. A dark peace rose within him. The wrongness had departed. There was nothing here worse than a dead man and a night gone wild.

  Moffat re-entered, drenched and shivering. “I had to give them my word I had strong presumptive evidence,” he said. “Well, I know what you’ve done in the past. But this better be good.”

  “Good enough, if we aren’t too late,” Yamamura said. He pointed to the ashtray. “Cardynge was pretty nervous when he talked to me,” he went on. “He hated to bare his soul. So he smoked one cigaret after another. But here—two butts for an entire evening. If you look in the kitchen, you’ll find that he made a hearty meal. And washed up afterward. Does any of this square with a man utterly shattered by a Dear John letter?

  “The dishes are dry in the rack. But something was washed more recently. The towel is still moist, even thought the saliva has dried in the corpse’s mouth. What was washed? And by whom?”

  Moffat grew rigid. “You mean that letter’s a plant? But the envelope—”

  “Something else was in that envelope. ‘Dear Aaron, can I come see you tonight on a very private matter? Lisette.’ She came with a pretext for discussion that could not have been particularly disturbing to him. Nor could her presence have been; his mind was made up about her. But they had a few drinks together.

  “At some point she went to the bathroom, taking her glass along, and loaded it with powder poured from the capsules. Then, I’d guess, while he went, she switched glasses with him. She’d know he used sleeping pills. Convenient for her. Still, if he had not, she could have gotten some other poison without too much trouble or danger.

  “Of course, she couldn’t be sure the dose would prove fatal, especially since I doubt if they drank much. Maybe she patted his head, soothed him, so he drifted into unconsciousness without noticing. He’d take a while, possibly an hour or two, to die. She must have waited, meanwhile arranging things. Washed both glasses that had her prints on them, fixed the one on the table here and clasped his hand around it for prints and poured most of the whiskey down the sink.

  “If he’d started coming around, she could have returned the pill bottle to the bathroom and told him he’d had a fainting spell or whatever. She could even say she’d tried to get a doctor, but none could or would come. He wouldn’t be suspicious. As things turned out, though, he died and she left. The only thing she overlooked was the evidence of the food and cigarets.”

  Moffat tugged his chin. “The autopsy will show how much he did or did not drink,” he said. “Did that occur to her?”

  “Probably. But it’s no solid proof. He didn’t have to be on a tear when he decided to end his life. The missing booze could’ve been spilled accidentally. But it would help plant the idea of suicide in people’s minds. She’s clever. Ruthless. And one hell of a fine actress.”

  “Motive?”

  “Money. If Bayard testified against her in the divorce proceedings, she’d get nothing but the usual settlement. But as a widow, she’d inherit a mighty prosperous business. She married him in the first place for what she could get out of him, of course.”

  Moffat clicked his tongue. “I’d hoped for better than this from you, Trig,” he said with a note of worry. “You’re really reaching.”

  “I know. This is more hunch than anything else. There won’t even be legal grounds for an indictment, if she’s disposed of the proof.”

  “Do you suppose she was mistak
en about his being dead, and after she left he roused himself long enough to call you? That sounds unlikeliest of all.”

  “No argument,” said Yamamura grimly. “That call’s the one thing I can’t explain.”

  They fell silent, amidst the rain and wind and relentless clock-tick, until the homicide squad arrived. The first officer who came in the door looked pleased, in a bleak fashion. “We got the word on our way here,” he said. “She wasn’t home, so the patrolman waited. She arrived a few minutes afterward.”

  “Must have left this house—” Yamamura looked at his watch. 2:27. Had the whole thing taken so short a while? “About an hour ago, seeing I was phoned then. Even in this weather, that’s slow driving.”

  “Why, no. She said twenty minutes or thereabouts.”

  “What? You’re sure? How do you know?”

  “Oh, she broke down and confessed all over the place, as soon as Hansen asked where she’d been and looked in her purse.”

  Yamamura let out his breath in a long, shaken sigh.

  “What was there?” Moffat asked.

  “The original note, which asked for this meeting and furnished an envelope to authenticate the fake one,” Yamamura said. “I was hoping she’d taken it back with her, to destroy more thoroughly than she might have felt safe in doing here.” More sadness than victory was in his tone: “I admit I’m surprised she spilled her guts so fast. But it must have affected her more than she’d anticipated, to sit and watch her husband die, with nothing but that clock speaking to her.”

  The discrepancy hit him anew. He turned to the homicide officer and protested: “She can’t have left here only twenty minutes ago. That’s barely before my arrival. Cardynge woke me almost half an hour before that!”

  “While she was still here—?” Moffat contemplated Yamamura for a time that grew long. “Well, he said at length, “maybe she’d gone to the can.” He took the phone. “We just might be able to check that call, if we hurry.”