“No,” the boy said.
Heimrich appeared not to hear him.
“Somebody was rattled tonight,” he said. “Badly rattled. Not thinking things out. Slugging the trooper, for instance. How was that to fit in? Hurried—foolish—young. You can imitate people’s voices, can’t you, Arthur? Anybody’s voice, almost? This other Mr. Lockwood’s!” He gestured toward Elliott. Elliott was looking at the boy; he was leaning a little forward, looking at Arthur Meredith. Now everyone was looking at the boy. His eyes went around the circle of the other eyes, as if he were looking for a way out, for belief in the other eyes.
“Poor Arthur,” his mother said, in the ugly quiet. “Poor, dear boy.”
And then her husband rose, not very quickly, and walked two steps toward her. He stood a moment looking at her and then, before anyone could move, he slapped her hard across the face. She screamed. The scream was high, sharp. Without looking at her again, Frederick Meredith went back to his chair. He did not look at anyone, not even at his son.
“You could put poison in the milk Mrs. Grace Lockwood had prepared,” Heimrich went on. “It was in the room, and the door wasn’t locked. You could go in later to see if Mrs. Phillips had drunk it and, when you found she hadn’t, try to make her. Using Elliott Lockwood’s voice! You could have done that, Meredith.”
The boy stood up, gangling, awkward, his face contorted.
“I—” he began. But he was not allowed to go on.
Elliott Lockwood was also on his feet. His wife was reaching for one of his hands, as if to hold him back. And Elliott was speaking, the words slashing out.
“You dirty little—” he said, his voice high pitched, shaking a little. “You tried to pin it on—”
And then he stopped in turn, because Sergeant Forniss was suddenly behind him, holding him by the elbows. Slowly, Elliott Lockwood’s gaze moved from the tall, awkward boy. Slowly, as if with an effort, he moved his head, his eyes, so he was looking at Heimrich. And Heimrich nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Lockwood,” he said. “Oh yes. You forgot to be hoarse, didn’t you, Mr. Lockwood? Now—not earlier. Not when you were in Mrs. Phillips’ room. Then it was deliberate. A precaution. So we’d think it was Arthur, imitating, and forgetting the hoarseness. Did you think you were being clever, Lockwood? Did you think you could get away with it Where’s your cold, Lockwood?”
Lockwood jumped against the hands of Sergeant Forniss. They could see his muscles move. But it was as if he were trying to jump in a vise.
“Yes,” Heimrich said. “Oh yes, Mr. Lockwood. We didn’t miss that. It would really have been hard to miss. You didn’t know much about nicotine, did you? When you spilled it on your hands? You didn’t know what had happened, but after a while you guessed. Too late—after you’d complained of feeling sick. Then, because you’d gone so far, you had to play it out. Pretend it was a cold. Pretend you were hoarse. Because—nicotine poisoning doesn’t make you hoarse, Lockwood. You remembered that much, probably from reading up on it. A burning sensation, difficulty in breathing, a headache, a little nausea. You might feel that way from a cold. When did you find out you’d poisoned yourself, too, Lockwood?”
Lockwood tried to speak; he was shaking in Forniss’ hands, now.
“I told you nicotine is tricky stuff, Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. “Remember. It’s easily absorbed through the skin. There’ve been several cases of fairly serious poisoning from spilling nicotine insecticide on the skin.* When Mrs. Meredith was poisoned, a good deal of the solution was spilled. Some of it, almost certainly, on the poisoner. So—we looked for somebody who wasn’t feeling well.” He looked now directly at Elliott Lockwood, and now for the first time his voice was really harsh. “You, Mr. Lockwood,” he said. “The criminal who fitted the crime!”
* * *
*See Homicide Investigation, by LeMoyne Snyder, Medicolegal director, Michigan State Police. (Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Ill., 1944.)
Twelve
She was too numb to feel relief, to feel anything. That was it; that had to be it. They had left the others in the living room, and then they were no longer looking at one another. Before Captain Heimrich had moved his head in a signal to Ray, before Ray had, by the pressure of his arm around her, guided her out of the room, she had had time to see the Merediths, John Lockwood, not looking at one another and not looking, with a kind of special care, at Grace Lockwood. That had been in the moment, the frozen moment, after Sergeant Forniss had taken Elliott Lockwood out of the room. Lockwood had looked, still, rather extraordinarily young, but something—something which might be age, and might merely be fear—was coming over his face. His wife watched him go, not moving, merely looking at him with her eyes wide, and her face working. It was after he had gone, had been taken, that her face had suddenly seemed to collapse and she had made a small, almost heartbreaking sound, and then had gone out the other way, through the dining room.
Jane hardly knew, did not remember, how she had got from the living room into the smaller library. She must have walked there, walked across the hall with Ray’s arm around her, but she did not remember it. She had sat where Ray indicated she was to sit and looked at nothing, and thought of nothing.
“So you did know,” she heard Ray say, and it was as if he were speaking from a great distance. “All the time—from the beginning. From the time you got here.”
“Guessed,” Heimrich said. “Not knew. I—” He broke off. “Mrs. Phillips,” he said. “Listen to me, Mrs. Phillips.”
She looked at him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You realize that?”
“What?” she said. “What do you mean?”
“Listen,” Heimrich said. “You’re thinking it was your fault. Because you came.” He looked from her to Ray Forrest. “You see that, Mr. Forrest?” he said. “She shouldn’t, you know.”
Then Jane realized that it was that thought, more than anything, which had caused the odd numbness. But she had not realized it before. She merely looked at Heimrich, and did not know that her eyes slowly widened.
“Catalytic agents,” Heimrich said. “You and I both, Mrs. Phillips. Understand that. You to start it. I to—to keep it going. Keep it from solidifying, fixing. But it was not your crime, and not my crime. You see that?”
“If I hadn’t decided to come home,” Jane said. “They—they wouldn’t have had to do anything. Aunt Susan would be—Elliott wouldn’t have done anything to Aunt Susan.”
“Naturally,” Heimrich said. “You understand that. I’m talking about guilt. Tell her, Mr. Forrest.”
“Guilt doesn’t come into it,” Ray said.
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. “It’s as she said. You know that. Mrs. Meredith would merely have died. Today, tomorrow, next week. That’s perfectly true. She knows that. But—it was an innocent action. She must realize that.”
“I just wanted to come home,” Jane said. “And—all this happened. And Aunt Susan was killed.”
Heimrich looked at Ray and waited.
“Jane!” Ray said. “You’re—it’s crazy.”
“I wanted to come home,” Jane said. “That was all. I didn’t—I didn’t want to make it up with Aunt Susan. Not to get her money. I—the money didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Heimrich continued to look at Ray. She could feel him waiting. Then he said, “Tell her, Mr. Forrest.” It was odd, she thought, how Heimrich seemed to assume that it had to be Ray who told her. For a moment Ray was silent. Then he spoke.
“Jane,” he said. “It’s this way. You—you hold up your hand to stop a bus. Think of it that way. You hold your hand up. The bus stops. And the car behind runs into the bus. Maybe people are killed. Is that your fault?”
“I—” she began, and then Ray was suddenly in front of her, holding out his hands, taking hers as she half lifted them. He pulled her up. But he was not tender. He had her shoulders, now.
“By God!” he said. “I’ll shake it out of you. I’ll—”
/>
And then he stopped, and merely looked at her. She looked up at him, and suddenly the distance—the veiling distance—between her and other people disappeared. It was as simple as that, and as final. She could see Ray clearly, feel clearly his hands on her shoulders, his nearness.
“I’m crazy,” she said, and then she almost laughed. “I’m not crazy,” she said. She looked at Heimrich, then.
“Naturally,” Heimrich said. He looked at Ray Forrest. “Very nicely put, Mr. Forrest,” he said. “Very effective. Now—I didn’t know. I only guessed. And not at once. Only when we found out that somebody had spilled the nicotine, probably on himself. Then of course, it looked like Elliott Lockwood.”
“Then you believed me?” Jane said. “All the time? I thought you didn’t?”
Heimrich leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“Well,” he said, “it was quite a story. It was a complication, naturally. If Elliott had killed Mrs. Meredith, as I guessed, why try to keep you from getting here? Whether you were telling the truth or not, there was more to it than I’d thought at first. The pattern was more complex.” He opened his eyes. “Even if I was sure it was Elliott Lockwood,” he said, “I had to get the whole pattern before I did anything. You see that.” He looked at Ray. “I wasn’t just sitting tight, Mr. Forrest,” he said. “Not altogether. And you helped.”
“By going to White Plains,” Ray said, with some bitterness. “By leaving Jane here.” He leaned forward slightly and looked hard at Heimrich. “Unprotected,” he said.
Heimrich closed his eyes. He was silent for a moment.
“The best laid plans,” he said. “Turner was supposed to take care of that. Trooper Turner. He let himself get slugged from behind. Probably he made it easy by letting himself go to sleep. Not as planned, naturally. But—I needed action, Mr. Forrest. Something specific.”
“What did you get?” Ray said.
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said, and his voice was patient. “Fingerprints on a flashlight. Identifiable footprints in the soft ground under the window, where he landed. And—Mrs. Phillips’ identification of his voice. Quite a good deal, we got.”
“But not proof he killed Mrs. Meredith,” Ray said. “That you didn’t get.”
Heimrich opened his eyes.
“Moral,” he said. “Moral proof. We’ll get the rest. Probably he’ll tell us, now. And—the family will throw him to the wolves, you know. That will help.”
“Even his brother?” Ray asked. “He tried to throw Jane to the wolves. To protect Elliott.” Ray stopped to consider. “Which means he knew all the time,” he said.
“Probably,” Heimrich agreed. “Probably the Merediths did.”
“His wife?” Ray asked. “Elliott’s wife? Did she help him in his plan to—to get rid of Jane? By getting the milk ready?”
Heimrich closed his eyes. He shrugged.
“Guessing,” he said, “no. Although she may try to make us believe it was her idea, figuring we’ll go easy on him.” Heimrich sighed. “Material,” he said. “Make the—”
“I know,” Ray said. “The character fit the act.”
“Well,” Heimrich said. “Well.”
He was silent for a moment.
“As far as John Lockwood is concerned,” he said, “he was willing to throw us Mrs. Phillips as long as it didn’t cost anything. Or commit him to anything. He wouldn’t have sworn it was she he saw. He said as much.”
“But you believed him,” Ray said. “For a little while, anyway.”
Heimrich opened his eyes and seemed surprised.
“But,” he said, “naturally, Mr. Forrest. I believe everybody for a little while. One has to, I think. You believe as many people as you can. And then, gradually, you find out which the one is you can’t believe.” He nodded, apparently to himself. “I found I couldn’t believe Mrs. Phillips would have poisoned her aunt, put the poison back in the shed, and then gone back to the house when she wasn’t going to stay in the house. So I couldn’t believe Lockwood.” Heimrich closed his eyes again.
“And that’s all,” he said. “Except detail—detail for the jury. We’ll get that, I think. Once you know the pattern, you get the detail. A girl decides to come home and her coming may cost several people a lot of money. They try to avoid the loss—in several ways. And one of the ways is murder. That’s the pattern. Quite a simple pattern, in the end.”
“But,” Jane said. “That they would! That people would. So many—people like that. In one family.”
Heimrich reopened his eyes.
“Oh, that,” he said. “People are odd, Mrs. Phillips. And some of them didn’t, you know. Young Meredith, for one. I doubt, for that matter, if his father did more than—well, hope. And Elliott Lockwood’s children, you know.” He paused. “Still,” he said, “not a nice family, yours, Mrs. Phillips.”
“I—” she said. “Not mine, any more.” She looked at Heimrich and then at Ray. “I haven’t got any family,” she said. She looked at nothing. “Or any home.”
“Come on,” Ray said. “Out of here, baby.” He turned to Heimrich. “O.K.?” he said. “It’s a—a lousy atmosphere.”
“Naturally, Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said, with his eyes closed.
She walked by herself as they went to the car, and Ray did not offer to touch her. He held the door for her, walked around the car and slid in behind the wheel. He drove for several miles along Route 100 before either of them spoke. Then he spoke, without looking at her.
“If you want a new family,” he said. “Family of one. I mentioned it, baby. You remember?”
“I—” she said. “Ray.” And then, quite unexpectedly, she was crying. And she reached up, gropingly, toward his arm. It was half a mile before he found a place to pull the little rented car off the road, to cut the ignition, to turn to her. She looked up and she was still crying. But not even tears were a veil, now. …
After what seemed only a moment, but was really much more than a moment, Ray Forrest turned on the ignition switch and the motor coughed and started. He moved the gear lever into low, but then he turned to look at Jane. She was not crying, now.
“On our way,” he said. “All right?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, Ray.”
He let the clutch in and the car moved onto the road.
“Of course,” he said, “I don’t know exactly where. New York but—where do we sleep?” He watched the road. “Do you know where we’re going, Jane?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Of course. Of course—we’re going home.” She was silent for an instant. “Wherever it is,” she said, and he could hardly hear her voice. “Wherever it is, we’re going home.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Captain Heimrich Mysteries
I
MARTA BROMWELL, WHO liked bright things and shiny ones, stood at a window of High Ridge and looked out on a dull world. The dullness began just beyond the tall, narrow window, fretted by muntins into sixteen small panes, so that it was almost as much lattice as window; the dullness of the world increased as one looked farther, across the wide, still-green lawn to the row of tall ashes beyond. The bare trees were ghostly and indistinct. Beyond them, where usually one saw other trees, where often one could see distant hills, there was only sullen grayness. It was worse this afternoon than it had been yesterday, and yesterday had been worse than the day before. It was confinement made visible, although one had to call it fog. Marta Bromwell called it fog, with several descriptive and somewhat surprising adjectives. She turned from the window and there was a kind of violence in the movement.
“It does get on one’s nerves,” Karen Mason said.
Marta looked at Karen.
“If you’ve got nerves to be got on,” she said. “If you’re not just—” She stopped, pointedly leaving it to Karen to finish. It was apparent that Karen did, since she flushed slightly.
“It’s depressed all of us,” she said, and then Marta laughed. It was a brief laugh,
a “huh-huh!” of a laugh.
“Not her,” Marta said. “Don’t tell me even the empress. That I can’t stand.” She paused. “Not that,” she said, as if what she had said before had been incomplete. She turned back to the window. “Damn everything,” she said.
The grayness was unchanged. Marta turned again, abruptly, angrily.
“I suppose she’s resting her eyes?” she said. Her voice was rich and low pitched. Rudolph Haas had assured her it was a luxurious voice. It remained a thing of luxury now, although Marta was putting into it all of the contempt of which she was capable, and she was capable of much. She managed now to express, in intonation as in phrasing, enough contempt to include both her mother-in-law and Karen.
Karen thought “Poor Scott” and simultaneously wished she looked as Marta looked and had a voice like that. She was conscious of the coincidence, was aware that now for more than a year certain thoughts had passed through her mind in a certain and inescapable sequence; that to think of what Marta was inwardly like made her think of Scott; that to think of him made her think again of Marta, of Marta’s quite extraordinary beauty and of Marta’s voice, and that the thought which came after was of her own appearance—of not being beautiful at all and of having a voice which was only a voice, with the sounds of New England in it. Well, Karen Mason told herself, it is certainly odd what can come out of Omaha. As for the sequence of ideas, there was not really anything to be done about it.
“Mrs. Bromwell is resting,” she said, and wished it did not sound so prim, so like a secretary. But there was nothing to be done about that, either; she was, after all, Mrs. Bromwell’s secretary and Marta was, after all, Mrs. Bromwell’s daughter-in-law.
“Not in the drawring room?” Marta said, making the most of the “r.”
Karen smiled faintly, willing to let it go as a joke. She shook her head.
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