Corpses at Indian Stone

by Philip Wylie

  Her eyes were hard emerald. "Still--following me!"

  "Not at all. Hadn't the faintest idea you'd be here. Chance."

  She came a few steps closer. She was no longer alarmed. She noticed for the first time the interesting fact about Aggie's physique--considered it boldly--dismissed it. She said, "Will you help me put my canoe in? I'm tired."

  "Certainly. I'll paddle you back, if you like--and tow your canoe."

  "All right."

  He pushed in both craft. Danielle dropped down on the bottom of one and held the other. Aggie's eyes searched the shore. "Looking for a vine," he explained. "Something for a towrope--brier--grape--"

  "Tear up my towel."

  He hesitated and then followed the suggestion. "Sarah," he said, "would be in a tizzie over waste like this." A short time later, they were moving down the calm lake.

  Danielle sat amidships, leaning against a thwart. Her canoe towed on a painter that looked like a kitetail. She studied Aggie without especial interest and certainly without much emotion. He said nothing-waiting for her to talk.

  "You really weren't following me," she said at last, as if it were the result of a thought train she had spoken aloud.

  "Nope. I was trying to get away from people."

  "Why?"

  His eyes were candid. "I don't like people--much. This kind, I mean. And they don't like me at all, as a rule. Maybe the latter explains the former."

  "Or vice versa. If you liked them, they'd like you. That's what my mother used to say to me." There was another long pause. "I presume you know," she continued, "that I'm not particularly popular around here either. Especially with the women. With a few of the men--it's different."

  "I don't know anything about you. Sarah told me you weren't married--"

  She cut him off by laughing shortly. "No. And I've had the very finest offers.

  Bankers and brokers, young doctor friends of my dad's, kids in college, and middle-aged millionaires. Park Avenue and Newport, Palm Beach and Los Angeles. I've turned them all down and I don't know exactly why. There's something the matter with the men. With all men, these days. They aren't rugged. They haven't courage. Oh, they have plenty of nerve. It's not that. It's courage where women are concerned. Maybe they were brought up wrong: Bad mores, bad environment. The thing that makes people call America a matriarchy. Too much respect for women--in the worse sense of respect. A girl--wants a man in this world who can run her when she gets in a crisis with herself--and I have yet to see one."

  Aggie paddled complacently. "It couldn't be--anything the matter with you?"

  "No. It couldn't. Not fundamentally. Oh--superficially--yes. I've become disappointed about living, and maybe bitter, to some extent, and certainly I've become a pretty serious troublemaker--if it's possible to make trouble for people who don't care whether they get married or not, or stay married, or get divorced--people without any real feelings. I do it deliberately. I like to see dopes squirm, sometimes, and I don't mind admitting it. Everybody likes it--but most people are too damned soft to say so." Her expression concentrated into one of slight surprise. "Funny. I don't usually talk like this.

  And you heard me say this anyway--to Bill." He shrugged. "I'm sort of neuter, I guess."

  She stared at him and she, too, shrugged.

  He went on paddling, slowly. She didn't seem to be in a hurry. She had been trying to tell him something about herself--to alibi her actions with Bill Calder, no doubt-

  -but whether she had been trying honestly or not, he was unable to discern. He said in the same casual tone they both had used, "What were you up in the summerhouse for?"

  Her head turned toward him quickly. Her muscles were tense. She relaxed bit by bit. "I wondered when you'd ask me why I was up there. What makes you think I went to the summerhouse? I haven't even thought of it for ages."

  "A guess," he said. "If you'd gone around the lake, you'd have started from the boathouse. There's only one path up where you were besides the circuit around. One near where you landed, that is. Looking for Hank Bogarty?"

  "That's supposed to make me jump, isn't it? You're fairly adroit, Aggie. Not just erudite, the way you were as a kid. Clever. And you have a marvelously fresh memory of the geography here. One might almost think you'd renewed it recently."

  He raised his eyebrows. "Natural aptitude."

  She thought again. "Are you stooging for Wes Wickman? Is there something odd about Jim's death that the rest of us don't know? Should we be frightened? Or what?"

  "What do you think?"

  "I think--if he was murdered--either you did it--or I ought to tell you something.

  One of the two."

  Aggie chuckled. "Nothing more logical than for a fusty pedagogue to rush fifteen hundred miles across the continent, kill a man he'd forgotten existed--kill him ingeniously, not to say miraculously, in a log trap--and then hang around the premises like the proverbial criminal who can't resist the landscape of his crime."

  "Our house," said Danielle in reply, "is nearer Garnet Knob by maybe a quarter of a mile than yours. That night--around midnight--I heard somebody chopping--far away.

  The wind blew the sound down--for a minute."

  "You might have mentioned it at the inquest. High school boys don't build animal traps in the middle of the night."

  "I thought of it afterward. Then--that night--our lights were off. I went to Mr.

  Waite's house twice--to see if I could get a couple of flashlights. Mr. Waite wasn't there.

  Not at seven--and not at eleven."

  "How many Waites are there?"

  "Just one. Him. A servant or two. He eats at the club." She considered. "Does Sarah--seem to be--worried--about anything?"

  "Her mumps. I dunno. Why?"

  "Mr. Waite is. Father is. They--with Sarah and Jim Calder--got that wire from Hank Bogarty."

  "What do you know about Bogarty?" Danielle shook her head. "Nothing. He visited here before I was born. Before you were, I expect. Miner. Prospector. Made a lot of money. Borrowed from Dad and the others--and paid it back, I gather. But--"

  "How come your father was working the night I called for him?"

  Danielle looked angry. "I've waited for that-for a long time. He had a call in Parkawan. Consultation. He left toward the end of evening--and he didn't get back till a little while before you knocked. I'd just let him in--he'd forgotten his key-and gone back to bed-when you came rattling around with Sarah's mumps. He took an X-ray plate into his darkroom." She anticipated his next question. ''The emergency ought to be easy to check, hadn't it? Ask Dad. I'm sure I don't know what it was."

  He dropped that. "How was it at the summerhouse?"

  "Spooky," she replied absently. Then, realizing she had admitted being there, she gasped. ''That's mean! Tricky. All right. Dad is worried about something. He won't talk.

  Somebody's dead. I'm worried. This person--Bogarty--is missing. I began to think that he might be hanging around here somewhere. Hiding. I thought over the places to hide. I remembered that summerhouse--good shelter--and nobody's been there for years and years; I decided to look at it. That's all."

  "You've got nerve--going alone."

  "I generally go alone in this world. And I sneaked up, besides. There was nobody in it--and there hadn't been--forever, just about."

  Aggie paddled among the islands near the beach. They could hear voices and splashing. But they were still out of sight and the islands were very quiet, as was the water between them. He was thinking about what she had said. Up ahead, a hundred or more yards, he saw the bow of a rowboat. As he took another stroke, the boat's occupant came into view. It was Dr. Davis. He was making a long, minute search of the region opposite to theirs. A quality of furtiveness was so evident in the stare that Aggie automatically stopped the motion of his canoe with a silent backthrust of the paddle. He expected that the surgeon would search in the other direction and see them, but Dr. Davis had evidently assured himself of privacy in that quarter.

  Be
side the doctor, on the seat, was a tackle box. A casting rod lay across the boat's gunwale. He opened the box hastily, took out a tray, peered ahead again, and then lifted something else. As he did so, Aggie saw Danielle turn along the line of his gaze and look. She opened her mouth. Her father lifted the object--or objects--it looked like two--and hefted them. He then raised them to throw them overboard. Aggie was watching intently, because he felt sure that he could identify the things when they were in the air.

  But he had no chance. Danielle saw his acute scrutiny and overturned the canoe.

  As he felt himself arc toward the water, Aggie kept looking at Dr. Davis. He thought--but only thought--that the things thrown were shoes. Then the water closed over his head. He came up, swimming hard. He looked for the girl--and she rose near by.

  "Sorry," she said, treading water. "I saw Dad--and lost my balance."

  The surgeon, startled by the splash, had evidently spun around; seen them go under, and manned his oars. He coasted up to them. He looked shaky to Aggie--but Aggie's position in the water made accurate observation difficult. The doctor was certainly smiling, in any case.

  He said jokingly, "Service de luxe! Rescue before you send out an SOS." Danielle grabbed one of his oars as he went on: "Haven't you been taught better canoeing than that, girl? Don't you know that when you wheel around like a dervish in a canoe--it tips?

  Or are you as absent-minded as your old man--who's just thrown his anchor over without remembering to tie a rope on it?

  "I saw you," Danielle said. "It was the old anchor, anyhow. The rusty one.

  Stupid!"

  Aggie glanced from one to the other. Then he swam to the canoe which had not been dumped. He scrambled aboard, over the bow. They were covering each other nicely, he thought. It hadn't been an anchor. Brown, low shoes, he was almost certain. But, ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have believed it had been an anchor, after that exchange, no matter what their first impression had been. Quick thinking. Too quick for comfort. Aggie said, "Maybe we can persuade you to row the derelict over to the beach, doctor? I'll take Danielle aboard for another trial--or--if she's afraid--she can go with you."

  Danielle climbed into the canoe the way Aggie had. The doctor took the towel painter. They started. Danielle said, "I hope you aren't going to tell any of the stuff--you gathered from me this afternoon. It isn't really evidence, at all. Just nonsense."

  He did not reply. She looked at her father for a moment and her face became paler. It was the paleness of anger, and of fear. "You wouldn't," she said, as if to assure herself. "You've got manners. And I'd cross you up! I'd deny I'd heard chopping the other night! I'd make you look like a fool--again! It's easy, you know. You wouldn't dare try it!"

  It was a kind of moral cheating--an exercise of illegal, feminine force-and a threat. She was frightened because of what he had seen her father do. In her fear--

  translated to wrath--she was insulting. He looked at her until she looked away. "I would,"

  he said, "if I wished. And you know it."

  When he reached Rainbow Lodge, he found Sarah bursting with news. "Wes stopped by," she said. "He asked for you. Had to go on. Hank Bogarty is dead."

  Aggie's face was surprised and, in a moment, blank. He waited. His aunt seemed curiously relieved-and more like her old self.

  "Some youngsters were fishing in Upper Lake--beyond here on the main road.

  They fished up an automobile headlamp--and it wasn't rusty--so they told the state troopers. They grappled for the car and got it. Washington State license tag. They telephoned about it-and the car was Hank's, all right. He'd bought it quite recently. The road there is a sharp curve--and the lake is twenty feet deep where the road bends. People have driven in before. There's a new cable fence--but it's evidently too short. He went off beyond the end of it. The marks were clear enough--when they looked for them. Nobody had noticed until they did."

  "Maybe now," Aggie said quietly, "you'll tell me about Hank." As he watched her consider that, he went on musingly, "Bum way to die. Drown in a car. Gives me the willies. Or was he cracked hard enough--?"

  "They haven't found his body yet," she replied absently. "It must have been thrown out. They're looking now." She made a stifled sound. She looked at her nephew in abrupt dread. "Suppose they never find it? Suppose there-- isn't any body! Suppose he--

  walked away from that wreck and--!"

  "And what?" Aggie said with a voice that was blisteringly quiet. "I'm waiting for you to tell me that, Sarah."

  CHAPTER 7

  Aggie Plum stopped his Aunt's station wagon at the side of the road and scrutinized Upper Lake. It was a typical mountain lake--two miles long, possibly--

  shoaling into an extensive sphagnum bog. On the end near the main highway there were miniature cliffs; the water below them had a blue luminosity that indicated depth. On the far side were several cottages. Two large rowboats were moving slowly upon the lake surface. Ropes hung over their stems. A truck was parked under a marginal grove of red pines and beside the truck stood a car that had been in an accident. Its wheels were wracked and awry. A headlight was missing. The top had been bashed. Along a cable fence that bordered the highway stood several persons interestedly watching the scene.

  Aggie stepped from his car and spotted Wes Wickman. The two men came together at a spot some distance from the nearest spectator. "Found anything?" the scientist asked.

  The state trooper shook his head. "Nobody. Not yet. It's Hank Bogarty's car, all right. Whoever he is. Or was."

  Aggie nodded. "I've put the bee on Sarah about him--just now--but I can't learn anything. He was somebody--something--that she doesn't want to discuss."

  "Waite and Davis were the same way. They had so much to say about how little there was to say--that I know there's more. Incidentally--!"

  Aggie lifted inquiring eyes.

  "I need you, Plum. Glad you came. There were some bones in the car."

  "Bones!"

  "Yeah."

  "What kind of bones?"

  "That's what I thought you could tell us. Bones--are your specialty--hunh?"

  Aggie did not reply. He had a feeling that, if there were human bones in the coupe which Hank. Bogarty had driven from Seattle to the outskirts of Indian Stones, certain persons in that colony were going to find themselves in a horrid sweat. The thought gave him a moment of detached and somewhat sadistic amusement: a few human bones in the car of the man nobody wished to discuss ought to elicit the whole truth about Mr.

  Bogarty.

  They walked under the red pines. Captain Wickman pulled open the coupe's rumpled door. The bones were on the floor. Aggie bent over and the trooper waited intently.

  "Veal," Aggie said presently. "Calf, that is." He picked up one of them. A little meat clung to it--waterlogged and pallid. "Here's the mark of a butcher's cleaver. This end--was sawed. And here--I think--" He smiled slightly. "Wes, make a note that Mr.

  Bogarty had a dog--medium-sized--" He stopped talking. His smile vanished. He saw the look in his own eyes, reflected in the eyes of the officer. "Yeah. Calder was bitten by a dog that size. Size of a fox--as Jack said the other night." A memory flashed into his mind. "What color is the mutt the chef owns at the club?"

  "All colors. Brindle--mostly."

  Aggie dropped the veal bone back on the car floor. He wiped his fingers delicately on a bandanna. "See here, Wes. I'd forgotten this. Kind of thing you do forget. I saw a fox--at the crack of dawn--the night Calder was killed. Black one--or silver. I thought it was a dog, at first; I was sure it was--and I can't seem to recall why. I wouldn't make such a mistake once in a thousand times--" He broke off. The state trooper's face was urgent with the wish to speak.

  "Bogarty raised silver foxes as a hobby! We had that in a routine report on him."

  Aggie sat down on the running board of the coupe, which was still damp. He took out his pipe. "Exactly what did that report say? The whole business."

  "Routine police stuff. Bog
arty was well known in British Coluinbia. Well-liked, for that matter. Served in the last war with the Canadians. Got to be a captain. He was well fixed. Owned some good mines. Nobody has any complete information about his dough-which is the status of most wealthy guys. He's supposed to have found one deposit--long ago--that made him a fortune. But he worked it himself--exhausted it himself, possibly--because nobody knows whether that strike is included in his present properties or not. Those were sourdough days--and Bogarty wasn't talking any more than the others; He volunteered for this war and they wouldn't take him. Came down to the States to see what he could do to arouse interest in the British cause. He's been living in Seattle for a considerable time. Year or more. Liked--there. An Aid Britain' campaigner.

  Nothing against him at all. Big man--gray hair--looks younger than his age--helped the Mounted Police once or twice. The kind of guy, judging from the reports, that you'd enjoy knowing. The kind, too, that you'd hate to cross up--or double-cross."

  Aggie had listened to the recital with the seeming of incomplete attention. He knew what the trooper had said--but he was not thinking about it. "I can't imagine--" he began.

  Wes flung an empty tobacco tin into the lake. He held out his hand for the scientist's pouch. "I can--easily. Your aunt--Waite--Davis--Calder---did business long ago with this honest son of nature. Calder--well, you know his reputation. Bogarty came on to see his old pals-perhaps to enlist their influence for the English--and arrived--say around eleven. Found nobody at Sarah's-pinned up his card-and reached Calder's after Gannon had turned in--"

  Aggie was tapping the coupé with his pipe. "Didn't arrive. Went into the drink on this curve--"

  "You know what I'm going to say! Bogarty arrived--and he eventually went to see Calder. Probably tried Waite after Sarah. Hung around. He knew the crowd would be here--because they always arrived--every year--on the twentieth. So Bogarty drove in at Calder's. I wish I'd done more looking at tire tracks the night we found Calder! Too much rain, since. Anyhow--Bogarty went in--and began to catch up with what had happened to his old friends in the last thirty-six years--"