“And when the big dog comes home, tell him what the little dog’s done.
And when the big dog comes home, tell him what the little dog’s done.”
The music continued, hot and throbbing and primitive. Saxophones moaned, trumpets slobbered, drums beat a barbaric tattoo. The air was filled with rhythm.
Dr. Buelow asked, “May I have this dance, Mrs. Brady?”
Mrs. Brady advanced toward Dr. Buelow. He clasped her in his arms, and they swung off to the music. They turned around the room, Mrs. Brady’s bare feet, padding across the smooth wood, followed by Dr. Buelow’s black shoes. As the record neared the end, Miss Clayton knelt and set the needle at the beginning. She turned the handle quietly. Presently the pair appeared at the doorway, hovered grotesquely over the jamb, and then swayed down the hallway before the outraged eyes of Sheriff Walters.
The guttural voice with the orchestra announced:
“I’m goin’ back to Chicago, to have my hambone boiled.
I’m goin back to Chicago, to have my hambone boiled.
Because those New York Gals
have really got it spoiled.”
Down the hall the couple gyrated, whirling clumsily, backing spasmodically, pushing forward, halting, side-stepping, and reeling to the tune. Mrs. Brady’s face did not notice the audience: it was serene and rapt and oblivious. Dr. Buelow frowned in concentration. They turned into a door marked “Steam Room” and were suddenly lost from sight. Miss Clayton bent over the phonograph.
“I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down, I hate to see that evenin’ …”
Miss Clayton lifted the needle from the record, and the hall was silent.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Sheriff Walters. He took off his hat and scratched his head with a knobby forefinger. He looked at Cliff. “You better not tell your ma about this,” he said.
“I ain’t going to,” said Cliff. He wet his lips with his tongue.
Deputy Powers asked, “What are they going to do with her in that steam room?”
“They’ll give her a hot bath. She’ll be all right in three or four hours,” Dr. Livermore said. “It soaks the nervousness out of them.”
“I’ll be God-damned,” said Sheriff Walters.
Cliff walked over to his father and whispered in his ear. “No,” said Sheriff Walters. “We’ll talk to them nurses later.” Cliff whispered again. “That’s all right,” said Sheriff Walters. He faced the crowd in the hall.
“I would like to have everybody except Dr. Livermore and Dr. Un-huh here wait for me in the big room downstairs. Deputy Powers will go with you.”
Sheriff Walters was very serious a half hour later when he came into the living room. Cliff and Deputy Ty Graham sniffed at his heels like puppies after a blood hound bitch. Behind them came the three physicians Dr. Buelow’s face was worried.
The sheriff asked, “Which one’s him?”
There was a gleam of triumph in the small eyes of Dr. Eastman as he pointed toward Crane. “That’s your man,” he said.
“You William Crane?” the sheriff demanded.
Crane nodded. The sheriff turned to his deputies. “Bad-looking customer,” he said.
The deputies assumed menacing attitudes; their legs thrust far apart and their shoulders hunched forward. Nobody was going to get around them.
“Mr. Crane,” Sheriff Walters said. His voice was polite. “I have reason to believe that you are connected with both these murders. The doctors have been telling me something about you while we were upstairs. Is there anything you want to say in your defense?”
Crane said, “I’d like to know what makes you think I have something to do with these murders.”
“It looks pretty bad for you. You were about the only one who had an opportunity to kill this Miss Paxton. You were up in your room getting a handkerchief at the time.”
“You don’t arrest people for getting handkerchiefs, do you?” Crane asked.
“No, but we got more than that on you. You were seen leaving Miss Van Kamp’s room just before Pittsfield was found.” The sheriff nodded chidingly at him.
“You don’t believe what that Blackwood was forced to tell last night?”
“I don’t have to,” said the sheriff triumphantly. “Someone else saw you too.”
“Who was that?”
“Dr. Livermore.”
“I thought he’d be the one.” Crane stared viciously at the doctor. “He’s no better off than I am. Why don’t you ask him where he was when either murder was committed?”
The sheriff said, “We’re interested in you. What reason could Dr. Livermore have for killing one of his own patients?”
“Plenty,” said Crane.
“What is it?”
“I’ll let you find it out.”
Cliff said, “If you know anything it would be better for you to talk.” He was a pool-room boy. His face was white and unhealthy, and his black eyes were lacquer bright.
“It would be better for you to stick to your nurses,” said William Crane.
“Listen,” said the sheriff. “We are ready to hear anything you have to say.”
“How about Blackwood? Or Dr. Livermore? Why don’t you ask them some questions? Why specialize on me?”
“We’ll ask them when we get good and ready,” said Sheriff Walters. “You get so goddam fresh and you’ll get locked up. What we want to know is what you were doing in Miss Van Kamp’s room when Pittsfield was murdered?”
“How do you know Pittsfield was murdered at the time I’m supposed to have been in the room?”
“That’s easy,” said Cliff. “Dr. Livermore says the fellow was dead before the time you were seen coming out of the room.”
“That’s certainly interesting.”
“Yeah, it is,” said Cliff. “And now maybe you’ll tell us what you were doing there?”
“I haven’t said I was there.”
The sheriff said, “This ain’t going to get you anywhere.”
“It looks as though he was the guy,” said Cliff.
“That’s deductive reasoning for you,” said Crane. “Because I don’t admit I did the murder, that makes me guilty. If I confess, I suppose you’d set me free.”
“This attitude ain’t helping you none,” said the sheriff. “What do you know about deduction?”
“Everything,” Crane said. “I’m a great detective.” The sheriff and Dr. Eastman exchanged glances. “There are two types of deduction: elementary and advanced. The first type, such as your surmise that I must be the guilty party because I am supposed to have had the opportunity to commit the crimes, leads to no conclusion. The second type often provides definite information to the investigator. For instance, Mr. Sheriff, I notice a yellow stain on your shirt front and I surmise you had eggs for breakfast this morning. That is an elementary deduction. But I also notice that your neck is dirty and that causes me to alter my original deduction. From your neck I gather that you have not bathed recently. I know you would not change to a clean shirt without bathing. So I say to myself, the sheriff has had eggs for breakfast recently. That’s an advanced deduction.”
Deputy Tom Powers asked, “Should we take him?”
“Wait a minute,” said Crane. He stepped closer to the sheriff. “Before you do anything rash, I want you to think of a few things. What motive would I have in killing Pittsfield and Miss Paxton? What motive would any patient have? He couldn’t get out of here, anyway.” William Crane waved his arm for the benefit of the patients and employees, who were standing in back of him. “What is usually the motive of a murder that is done carefully and secretly? It is personal advancement, isn’t it? That isn’t the way a crime of passion, of hate, or of violent emotion is done. They are covered up afterwards. At least one of these, that of Miss Paxton, was carefully planned. The murderer was careful to wait until we were all at dinner. You see that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Cliff. “But what does it prove?”
“It proves that y
ou should look for someone who is able to leave here whenever he or she wants.”
Cliff said, “I don’t see any motive anyway.” His father regarded him admiringly.
“You already heard a lady tell you the motive, but you didn’t pay attention.”
“Ah, Mr. Crane, your analysis is subtle.” It was Dr. Livermore, and his tone was derisive. “Of course, you can tell us the guilty party?”
“Of course not,” said Crane, “but it looks as though you might answer the description.”
“You’re sure the glove doesn’t fit you?”
“Positive.”
“This still ain’t gettin’ us anywhere,” said the sheriff. “I don’t want to arrest you, but I think it might be a good idea to give you a rest in your room for a while, just in case anything else is planning to happen around here.”
“I don’t want to go to my room.”
“It’s either that, or I’ll take you down to the court house and throw you in a cell.”
Crane said, “If you put it that way, I’ll take my room.”
“Ty, you’d better go with Mr. Crane.” Sheriff Walters indicated the stairs with a red hand. “See that he don’t get out. I’ll send someone up to spell you about dinner time.”
Ty shambled over to Crane and, seizing his arm, propelled him toward the stairs. Crane was aware that the eyes of the patients and the nurses and the attendants were watching him. Only the brown eyes of Mrs. Heyworth and the black ones of Miss Clayton were sympathetic. As he passed Mrs. Heyworth, she pulled gently on his coat sleeve. “It’s all right,” she whispered. Her voice was low and set his spine tingling.
As he climbed the stairs he heard Cliff say, “He’s not so dumb.”
Dr. Livermore explained, “Some of these borderline cases are very deceptive.”
“Often more dangerous than those known to have certain tendencies,” Dr. Eastman added. “They are hard to guard against.”
Ty walked right into the room with Crane. “You ain’t got a gun?” he asked.
“No.”
“Any weapons?”
“No.”
Ty crossed to the windows and looked down from first one and then the other. He fastened them both.
“Pretty good jump,” he said, “but I ain’t taking any chances.” He examined the room briefly, then looked in the closet, and then in the bathroom. He pulled the chain tentatively and listened to the roar of water with obvious pleasure.
“Damn fine plumbing,” he observed.
“Damn fine,” William Crane agreed.
“I’m going to sit outside your door,” Ty stated. “I don’t want to hear you fiddlin’ with them windows.”
He took the small chair in front of the writing desk and carried it out into the hall and propped it against the wall. He returned for the waste basket, which he placed within easy expectoration. Then he closed the door until it was just ajar and climbed into the chair and began a steady and somber contemplation of the opposite wall. His jaws moved without particular emphasis over a plug of tobacco.
Crane sat on his bed and wondered whether he ought to summon Williams with the rocket. He finally decided he would remain where he was for a while and let events work themselves out. Time, he felt, was the detective’s best friend. So thinking, he reached back of the dresser and secured the nearly full bottle of moonshine and poured himself a medium-sized drink. He drank this and another and was glad he hadn’t set off the Roman candle. He heard Ty cough in the hall. He poured half a glass full of the light yellow liquor and leaned out the door.
“Care for a drink?” he asked. “It’s good for what ails you.”
Deputy Sheriff Ty Graham’s eyes glistened and his tongue appeared for a second at the upper left-hand corner of his mouth.
“I don’t hardly ever touch the stuff,” he said wistfully.
“Come on.” William Crane held the glass in front of his nose. “It’s some of your local product.”
“Well,” said Deputy Graham. He looked quickly down the hall. “It’s been a hard day.”
In about an hour the bottle was empty.
Chapter XII
WHEN WILLIAM CRANE awoke it was just passing to dark from dusk. His head ached, and he washed his face in the bathroom. He was still a little drunk. He opened the door to the hall a crack and found Ty asleep on the chair. He was breathing with alcoholic violence. It was dark, too, in the hall, and quiet except for the exhalations of the deputy. Crane slipped by him and crept down the hall and the front stairs. He reached the garden unobserved. It was not at all cold outside; the air was quiescent, and the thin poplars lining the detention building were like mourners beside a casket. In the translucent sky a few stars goggled at their reflections on the polished surface of the pool.
Crane walked carefully over to the hospital building and crawled under the bushes in front of Dr. Livermore’s office windows on hands and knees. The lights were on in the office, but there was no one in the room. The huge mahogany desk was bare, and the cushions on the window seat in front of him were smooth and airy. The office was neat with the neatness of a hotel room waiting for a guest. William Crane was about to try the window when he saw the knob on the door to Dr. Livermore’s bedroom turn slowly. He stepped back into the shadow and watched. The door opened, and Miss Evans slouched into the office. She was wearing a close-fitting silk dress that was taut across her small hind quarters and her breasts. It didn’t seem to William Crane that she had anything on under the dress. She was applying lipstick to her mouth, turning her head from side to side before a silver-framed wall mirror, and thus giving herself, through the varied angles of the light, many faces; all of them beautiful, but some of them cold and reserved, some with a quality inscrutable and Eastern, and some quite wanton. She was a remarkable woman with her high cheek bones and her delicately hollowed cheeks and her lovely skin and her mustard-colored hair and her purple-shadowed eyes, and William Crane wondered why the hell she was a nurse.
As Miss Evans was completing her lips, Dr. Livermore came out into the room. He had on a Chinese silk robe and leather slippers, and his hair and beard were disordered. His lips were a smeary red.
“Please don’t go,” he said. His eyes were pleading. “Let’s have dinner in here.”
Miss Evans turned to him negligently. “For sixty you’re pretty good,” she said. “But you haven’t got goat glands.” Her voice was husky.
“Oh, I don’t mean anything like that.” Dr. Livermore’s long hands were entwined. “I want, I need your company. This other thing,” he gestured toward the bedroom, “is just incidental.”
Miss Evans’s laughter was mechanical. “Incidental. From the way you talk you’d think your life depended on it.” She smiled derisively at Dr. Livermore, and then her face suddenly underwent one of those miraculous changes. “Never mind, Livy, you’re no worse than other men, just a little older.” But for the rasping quality of her voice, she might have been a nun.
“You don’t understand,” Dr. Livermore said. “This is something different. I love you, I want to marry you, I want——”
“You’d better consult your wife first.”
“I’ll divorce her. We haven’t lived together for years.”
“You won’t get to divorce her if she ever hears about you having had all that money in Miss Van Kamp’s box.”
Dr. Livermore’s voice dropped a few notes. “I’ve stopped worrying about that box.”
“Why?”
“Even if it’s stolen from me for good, it won’t make any difference between us, will it?”
Miss Evans leisurely evaded his groping hands. “What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Dr. Livermore was pathetic. “I can’t lose you.”
“If you got the box in your possession again, what would you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you be able to put Miss Van Kamp out of the way to get the other key to her vault?”
“You mean … kil
l her?” Dr. Livermore’s beard quivered, and his long, tapering hands quivered in front of him. “Oh, no! I couldn’t do a thing like that. I couldn’t think——”
“I thought you said you’d do anything in the world for me?”
“Oh, I would. I would. But I can’t murder anybody.”
“Somebody can around here.”
“It must be that patient, Crane. It started as soon as he got here. He’s a dangerous man.”
Miss Evans laughed genuinely. “He’s in a nice place right now. That stupid sheriff will be taking him off to jail tomorrow morning, black eye and all.”
“It’s very strange. Who could have given him that second beating? He must have incurred the enmity of someone here.”
“I think it was probably the new guard. He doesn’t seem to like Mr. Crane at all.”
“Another thing I can’t understand is who called the police? If they hadn’t come we could have buried Mr. Pittsfield and Miss Paxton without any notoriety at all. I’m afraid the sanitarium is ruined.”
“That’s why you ought to think of Miss Van Kamp,” Miss Evans said savagely. “She’s an old lady. She is due to die in a year or two anyway, and——”
“I couldn’t.…” Dr. Livermore held up his hand. “Why won’t you come away with me? I have nearly forty thousand dollars. We could live on that for a long time in Europe. A quiet little town on the French Riviera, or an Italian island. Sunshine and good food and——”
“Not for me.” Miss Evans was as vivid as a poinsettia. “I want complete independence and everything that goes with it. Can’t you see that I’m not made for work? Giving old ladies enemas, carrying trays, taking temperatures, being sweet and kind and good and gentle. No!” She was walking rapidly up and down the room. Her flat hips ducked in a quarter-circle each time she pivoted. “I want clothes and travel and a maid. I want music and gayety and admiration. I want to be able to order people around. I want Oh, you can’t understand!”
Dr. Livermore watched her in silence, his face apprehensive.
“I know it takes money to have these things,” Miss Evans said. She spoke slowly, as if to herself. “I’m going to get it some way.”
Murder in the Madhouse Page 12