“Well, it’s my guess,” said Mary, “that sticking him in the toolhouse and using the pickax was a deliberate attempt to pin the killing on Dolph. And I’m pretty mad about it, I can tell you. Sarah, you finish your milk and don’t be dwelling on guns and pickaxes. You shouldn’t be thinking of such things in your condition.”
“Yes’m,” said Sarah. She was used to being bossed around by elderly relatives. “All the same—”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Kelling.” That was Henrietta. “Lieutenant Codfin’s here again, wanting to speak to Mr. Kelling.”
“Oh he is, is he?” said Mary. “Well, you show him right into the breakfast room. Anything he’s got to say to my husband he can say in front of me, and you tell him I said so.”
“Shall the rest of us leave?” Sarah asked.
“Hell no,” said Dolph. “Stick around and watch the fur fly. Mary’s pretty spectacular when she gets her Irish up. Don’t be too hard on the poor fellow, dear. He’s only doing his job.”
“Well, he’d better do it right or he’ll wish he had.”
Mary wiped her lips, laid down her napkin and stood up to greet Codfin. She came about to his elbow. “Good morning, Lieutenant. Would you like some coffee?”
“No thank you.” Lieutenant Codfin was as spruce and straight as he’d been the previous evening, notwithstanding the fact that he probably hadn’t had a wink of sleep. His expression, however, was that of a man nonplussed.
“I’d really prefer to speak to Mr. Kelling alone.”
Mary planted her fists on his hips, cocked back her head and gave him the full force of her bright blue eyes. “And would you, now? Come on, spit it out and get it over.”
“If you insist.” Codfin drew a long breath. “Adolphus Kelling, I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of—”
“Don’t you dare say it! If you think my Dolph’s the kind of man to go shooting people and clobbering them with pickaxes to cover up what he did—”
“The charge is not murder, Mrs. Kelling. If you’d please let me finish what I have to say—”
“Whatever it is, you’re wasting your time because he didn’t do it. Go ahead and get it out of your system if you have to, but don’t expect any of us to believe a word you say.”
Osmond Loveday pushed back his chair. “I’d better go telephone Mr. Redfern.”
“Not yet, Osmond,” Dolph objected. “Hadn’t you better wait and see what I’m getting pinched for first? Somebody ought to get Jem out of bed. He’d hate to miss this.”
“You’d all better pipe down and let Lieutenant Codfin read his warrant before he runs the pack of us in for obstructing an officer in the performance of his duty,” Max suggested mildly.
“All right, Max, if you say so. What the hell, it’s rather interesting. I’ve never been in the toils of the law before. Go ahead, Codfin. Hang me the rap.”
“Hang you the what?” Jem was among them, disgustingly pink-cheeked and full of beans after a far longer sleep than anybody else had got. Egbert had put him to bed nicely oiled just a little while before George brought the direful news from the toolhouse. “Egbert says I missed a murder. Why didn’t somebody come and tell me?”
“Because you were out like a light, you old souse,” snarled Dolph. “Shut up and pay attention, I’m getting arrested. And for God’s sake, everybody quit interrupting. This is a solemn occasion, damn it.”
He straightened up in his chair like an elder statesman about to get his portrait painted and glared at the by now pretty well demoralized representative of the law. “Well, get on with it, can’t you? What do you think we’re paying you for?”
Codfin cleared his throat and took another stab at the warrant. “Adolphus Kelling, I arrest you on a charge of trafficking in narcotics.”
“What?” roared Dolph, Max, Jem and Egbert in unison. s
“You’re crazy,” shrieked Mary.
“You certainly are,” Sarah confirmed. “Wherever did you pick up that absurd notion?”
Codfin gave her a glance that could have been called smug. “Acting on information received from licensed private detective Max Bittersohn and his assistant Brooks Kelling, the Boston Police Narcotics Squad last night conducted a raid on a downtown nightclub known as the Broken Zipper. A large quantity of heroin and two cartons of empty cans, purporting to have been intended for a fictitious soft drink and in fact used to make drops of the drug, were seized. Five persons, including one Daniel Purffle, a bartender and apparent leader of the operation, were taken into custody. All five insisted they were working under the direct orders of the club’s owner.”
“That’s interesting,” said Max. “According to my information, the Broken Zipper is owned by an outfit calling itself the Thanatopsis Trust.”
“It is,” said Codfin. “That trust is controlled solely by Adolphus Kelling.”
“That is a vicious fabrication,” shouted Dolph. “Now look here, Lieutenant, I shouldn’t mind so much getting arrested on halfway reasonable grounds, but accusing me of owning some goddamn sink of vice and depravity under the cover of some goddamn trust I never heard of is downright asinine and I’m not going to stand for it. Osmond, call Redfern.”
“We’d better line up your accountant too,” said Max. “Who is it?”
“Cousin Percy, of course.”
“The one Eugene Porter-Smith works for.”
“What’s that got to do with the Thanatopsis Trust?”
“Nothing, if we’re lucky. Where are you taking him, Lieutenant?”
“Boston. They’re sending out a car.” Lieutenant Codfin did not add the pious ejaculation he was so obviously feeling.
“All right,” said Max. “He’ll go quietly. Won’t he, Mary?”
“If you say so, Max, but you’d better know what you’re doing. Shall I pack your overnight bag, dear?”
“No, don’t bother. I don’t suppose they’d let me keep it. Afraid I’d strangle myself with my spare socks, no doubt. Which I damned well wouldn’t. Where’s Harry Burr? He’s the expert on getting arrested.”
“Harry took off.” Genevieve was standing in the doorway, making no effort to hide her tears. “To think I should live to see the day! I could bake you a cake with a file in it, boss.”
“Great idea. How about coconut frosting? Come on, Codfin. Let’s get out of here before I forget I’m cooperating.”
“We’ll see you in a while, Dolph,” Max assured him. “Come on, Loveday, we’d better do some telephoning. The rest of you get your things together and prepare to move out.”
“I’m coming too,” said Mary. “Genevieve, you and Henrietta will have to keep the home fires burning. Don’t you worry, I’ll bring the boss back alive. It’s a blessing we decided not to open the center today; at least we don’t have that to worry about. Where do you suppose Harry Burr went? Back to Boston on the T, I suppose. They have a coffee bar at the church today. I was going to send them the leftover food by Harry, but those youngsters polished off every bite.”
She was chattering to keep from crying. Sarah gave her a hug.
“Don’t fret, Mary. This is all some crazy mistake, and Max will fix it. Go put on that pretty green suit Dolph likes so much.”
Osmond Loveday sighed. “I must say I should be glad of a chance to change my own suit.”
“I should think you might,” Sarah agreed tactlessly. He did look silly in evening dress at this hour of the day. “Your landlady will think you’ve been making a night of it.”
“Fortunately I don’t have one.”
Of course he didn’t. He’d have a prissy little apartment up on Bowdoin Street or somewhere, with a signed photograph of Great-uncle Frederick in a silver frame on the mantelpiece. Sarah realized how little she knew about Mr. Loveday’s personal life, and how little she cared. She went upstairs, got the extra things she’d brought with her yesterday and walked out to meet the car Max had gone to bring around to the front door.
They filled the car, with Jem, Egbert and Loved
ay in the back seat and Mary and Sarah in front with Max. “Good thing the gendarmes took Dolph with them,” Jem remarked.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Mary snapped back. “How soon can I see him, Max?”
“I honestly can’t say, Mary. I thought I’d drop you and Sarah at Tulip Street until we find out what the score is. You might give Theonia a hand with Annie.”
“Oh my gosh, I’d completely forgotten about Annie. I’d better see if I can get hold of Joan somewhere and tell her not to worry.”
“I’m not so sure she shouldn’t.” Sarah began describing to Mary some of the ways Annie was beguiling the time during her protective detention.
That got Jem reminiscing, naturally. They all laughed harder at his yarns than they normally would have. It was better than stewing over what might be happening to Dolph.
“I’m going to the station with Max,” Jem insisted when they got into town.
“No you’re not,” Sarah vetoed. “You’d wind up poking some sergeant in the nose and we’d have two of you to bail out. You’re going home to gargle your throat so you’ll be in shape to sing bawdy songs at Dolph’s coming-out party.”
So Osmond Loveday, the only one who didn’t want to, wound up going alone with Max. He’d pleaded to stop off at the apartment and shed his absurd tuxedo, but Max said sorry, there wasn’t time.
In truth they were none too soon. Redfern was already in the room with Dolph, the captain and an assortment of minions. The prisoner and his lawyer were poring dazedly over a number of documents that had been laid out on the table.
“Don’t try to tell me you’re unfamiliar with Adolphus Kelling’s signature, Mr. Redfern,” the captain was insisting. “You must have seen it thousands of times.”
“Never in the context of this transaction,” Redfern insisted right back, “if indeed any such business ever took place, which I find impossible to believe. I cannot understand it.”
“Why not? It’s simple enough. Frederick Kelling bought the Broken Zipper in 1976 and deeded it over to his-nephew a year later, which would have been two years before he died, according to our information. No doubt this was done to avoid his nephew’s having to pay inheritance taxes. This is Frederick Kelling’s signature, and you needn’t try to deny it. We’ve got plenty of samples to compare it with. The guy must have spent all his time writing letters.”
“Nevertheless—”
The captain cut Redfern short. “Okay, so as soon as Adolphus Kelling obtained possession of the property, he put it into a blind trust in which he himself retained the sole financial interest. Maybe Mr. Kelling didn’t want his high-class friends to know he owned a crummy dive in the Combat Zone. Anyway, this is Adolphus Kelling’s signature, whether you say so or not. Furthermore the taxes have been duly filed and paid each year through a bank account in the name of Thanatopsis Trust, with checks signed by the treasurer, one William C. Bryant. Who’s William C. Bryant, Mr. Kelling?”
“I’ve already told you I don’t know any William C. Bryant. Nor do I know this John G. Whittier who’s down as secretary. And who the hell’s Oliver Wendell Holmes?”
“Come on, Mr. Kelling, quit trying to kid us. This is your handwriting and you know it.”
“I’m not denying that’s my handwriting, I’m merely telling you I did not sign those confounded papers. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”
“You refuse to admit your uncle deeded the Broken Zipper over to you?”
“I don’t refuse to admit the possibility that he might have done so. How can I? By 1976, Uncle Fred was loopy enough to have done anything. What I’m saying is that if he did, I never knew it. Redfern never knew. Cousin Percy never knew. Osmond, did you know?”
Loveday swelled up like an angry penguin. “How should I? You know perfectly well I didn’t handle your uncle’s personal affairs; I only worked on the organizational accounts.”
“And a fine mess you made of them,” Dolph grunted.
“But you must have been familiar with both Frederick Kelling’s and his nephew’s signatures, Mr. Loveday,” the captain pressed.
“Oh yes, thoroughly familiar. I couldn’t have helped being, considering how many letters I bullied them into signing over the past thirty-seven years. I’m sorry, Dolph old boy, but I’m afraid I’d have to testify that to the best of my knowledge, both your and Mr. Kelling’s signatures are absolutely authentic in every instance.”
“And all of them are absolutely identical,” said Max. “Dolph, how long ago was it that Loveday got rubber stamps made of your and your uncle’s signatures so that you two wouldn’t have to sign all those thousands of letters in person?”
“God, Max, so he did. Must have been upward of thirty years ago. Not long afterward Uncle Fred bought one of those automatic letter-writing machines that sign your name in a different color, so we never used them much. I’d completely forgotten. But you hadn’t, you bastard!”
“Rubber stamps?” The captain took the pocket magnifier Max held out to him, studied the signatures and shook his head. “I’ll be damned.”
“I’m the one who’s being damned without cause,” cried Loveday. “Anybody could get a rubber stamp made.”
“Who but you would think of it?” snarled Dolph. “And who else is expert enough with them to get a perfect impression every time? You’ve been rubber-stamping all your life.”
“Wait a minute,” said Max. “Let’s call in another witness. Is Perdita Follow still in custody, Captain?”
“The one with the poncho? Sure.”
“Has she talked yet?”
“Not a yip.”
“Can we get her up here?”
“No problem.”
“This is absurd,” Osmond Loveday sputtered.
“Think so?” said the captain. “You’re entitled to phone your lawyer if you’d like.”
“Thank you, I shall certainly do so.”
In this, Loveday was fortunate. His attorney was at home; he lived just over near the river end of Berkeley Street and could be there in ten minutes. Fetching Tigger from the lockup where she’d spent the night took longer, but not much. She clomped in wearing her poncho and boots, glaring out from behind her hair, her lips clamped tightly together. When she caught sight of Osmond Loveday, though, the lips parted.
“Lover boy!”
“Lover boy?” cried Dolph in understandable amazement. “Can she mean you, Osmond?”
“I have no idea whom she means,” Loveday replied, his own lips not working too well.
“So?” wailed Tigger. “I was but the plaything of an idle hour, a mere bauble to reflect the rays of your coruscant passion, and then be cast aside. Ozzie babe, how could you?”
“Christ Almighty!” Dolph’s eyes were bulging as they’d never bulged before. “You been sullyin’ the fair name of maidenhood with her!”
“I—I couldn’t help myself,” Loveday stammered. “For thirty-seven years it was just one mink coat after another tossed over the foot of my bed, then one day those feral little eyes gleamed out at me above that ratty old poncho and—”
The lawyer from Berkeley Street cleared his throat. “Er—Osmond, don’t you think it would be wiser not to give out any information?”
“What have I said? Merely that I admit to a brief , amorous dalliance with Miss Follow.”
“Miss Follow?” Tigger burst into cataclysmic sobs. “He told me I was deliciously uncouth!”
A middle-aged man’s passion for a younger woman is a dangerous thing. Osmond Loveday could contain himself no longer. “Oh, you are! You are! Please, Tiggywinkle, don’t cry.”
“Tiggywinkle?” Dolph Kelling’s jaw dropped halfway to his tie clasp. “Great balls of fire, if Uncle Fred were only alive to see this day!”
Chapter
23
“OSMOND LOVEDAY AND HIS little rubber stamps.” Mary Kelling shook her neat gray head. “Whoever would have thought it?”
“Actually Loveday had stuck out like a sore thumb fro
m the beginning,” said Max, “only I couldn’t figure out how to hang it on him until he murdered Ted Ashe.”
“And started Tiggywinkle spilling the beans,” snickered Dolph. “I suppose I shouldn’t laugh. As it turns out, Ted was really her elder brother, Wilbert Follow.”
“So that’s why they were cussing each other out in the alley,” said Sarah.
“No doubt,” Max agreed. “Tigger was furious with Wilt, as she called him, for muscling in on the SCRC and threatening to put a crimp in Lover boy’s drug-running operation. Wilt refused to give up the chance of a sensational exposé, even for his sister, and she was scared stiff Loveday would find out who he was and blame her. She’d been half tempted to bump off Wilt herself, we gathered, but she couldn’t take it when she found out Ozzie had done the job for her last night. That was when she really started running off at the mouth. I’ll bet she hasn’t shut up yet.”
“Did Tigger say Osmond killed Chet Arthur?” Mary asked.
“In graphic detail. By the way, Sarah, you were right about the garage, only it wasn’t the Under-Common one. What happened was that Hoopie made a drop—Hoopie being that bird in the purple sweat suit, who’s now in custody and chirping for all he’s worth—and Chet picked up the can. Only Chet, being no dummy, realized there was something strange about it. He investigated, found the little folded papers and opened one of them.”
“No doubt that’s how the heroin got spilled inside the SCRC bag,” said Brooks.
“Undoubtedly,” Max agreed. “Chet realized what he’d got hold of, didn’t feel competent to face the police with it by himself, and hightailed it back to the center to tell Dolph. As luck would have it, he got there just as Loveday was leaving, at five o’clock. Naturally when Loveday saw Chet still had his bag, he knew something had gone wrong with the drop. He stopped Chet, got the story out of him and told him the Kellings had left for the night but he’d be glad to run Chet out to their house in his own car.”
“I didn’t know he had one,” said Mary.
“There must have been an awful lot about Loveday you didn’t know. According to Tigger, he gave Chet a pretty hard time about what the drug dealers would do to him if they caught him. By the time they got to the car, Chet was only too happy to lie down on the floor in the back and let Loveday cover him up.”
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