The Distant Clue

by Frances

  Susan stopped; she opened her hands and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Anstruther,” Merton Heimrich said gravely.

  “The village dressmaker,” Susan said.

  “These are the families Lenox would be writing about?”

  “Some of them,” Susan said. “A dozen more, perhaps. Some families have died out. Some have—well, just spread out. Spread thin. There’s a Mears family in The Flats. As much Mears as anybody. He’s an odd-jobs gardener, when sober. But—you said incriminating. Nothing I know of. Of course, an incriminating thing—a really secret thing—”

  Again she stopped, since it is not necessary to spell out the obvious.

  “The charcoal’s in the grill,” Susan said. “I think there’s enough paper this time. The steak’s quite large, really. Enough for Charlie, too, if you’d like to ask—Speaking of whom—”

  The police car, which was not marked as a police car, ground up the drive. All cars made grinding protests on the steep Heimrich drive. Sergeant Charles Forniss got out of the car. Massive is the word for Charlie Forniss, Susan thought. He carried a square package. He walked to the terrace, said, “ ’Evening, Mrs. Heimrich” and said, “Here it is, M. L.” He handed Heimrich the square package. It was a solid package, reasonably heavy. “Figured you’d want it,” Forniss said.

  Heimrich put the boxed manuscript down on a table. He said, “You think of everything, don’t you?” and spoke without enthusiasm. He made Sergeant Forniss a drink, and Forniss sat on the edge of a chair to drink it, which meant that Forniss was not thinking of staying for steak. Heimrich went to the grill and lighted newspaper wadded under it, and turned a crank briefly until charcoal sparks came up. He went back to his own drink.

  “Bullets in Lenox from the gun, all right,” Forniss said. “One in Wingate banged up, but it’s the same caliber. Sealed the room and locked up the house. Lenox got those binoculars only a couple of weeks ago.”

  Heimrich said, “Yes, Charlie,” and closed his eyes to listen.

  Forniss had stopped in the Center to call in to ask about the bullets. He had run into Bill Mears, who owned the Van Brunt Hardware Store and, on the off-chance, since he had run into him, asked about the binoculars.

  Lenox had bought the binoculars from the Van Brunt Hardware Store—more exactly, bought them through it. “No demand for things like that,” and Mears had had to order specially. Lenox had seemed to be in an almighty hurry, so Mears had made it a rush order. The old boy—hard to realize a thing like that had happened to him. Didn’t make sense, somehow—had called up several times to ask whether the binoculars had showed up. They had showed up about ten days ago and Mears had offered to deliver them, but the old boy had driven in and picked them up.

  “Good glasses,” Mears said. “Didn’t come cheap, I can tell you.” He sighed at that. “And,” he said, “I put them on the old boy’s bill.”

  “I don’t,” Forniss said, “see that it proves anything. Birds are migrating about now. Could be, he just wanted to watch birds. On the other hand, you can see a lot of the Center from the top of his house, with glasses that strong. See in people’s windows, I wouldn’t wonder. If the old boy had gone a little … well, you know.”

  The elision was, Heimrich assumed, in deference to Susan. Or perhaps to the boy, who was within earshot. But the boy was talking to his dog, telling him to bring it here. “Here, Colonel. You half-witted dog, you. Here!”

  Without turning to look, Susan knew that the big dog had turned puppy again. What Colonel is, Susan thought, is a manic depressive. I wonder if Homer Lenox did spend time peeping in people’s windows? I wonder if we ought to start pulling down shades? Who was it said country is the place you don’t have to?

  V

  It was two in the morning when Merton Heimrich decided that, although he had by no means finished, he had had enough. He marked his place in the typescript with a strip of paper, because he knew he would—stubbornly, for no reason he could think of—go on with it. That’s what I am, he thought. A plodder—a slow and heavy plodder. (And she a dancer; a feather for lightness.)

  Heimrich rubbed his eyes, which stung a little. Glasses, Heimrich thought. That’s what I’m coming to. A heavy, plodding man peering out at the world through thick glasses; a man squinting myopically at the world. The wonder is that poor old Lenox didn’t bore himself to death.

  He looked at Colonel, who was, sensibly, asleep. He was, to be sure, lying in front of the fireplace, in which there was no fire. An outsize dog, probably not very bright, doing what was habitual. In winter, heat came from a fireplace. Therefore, one slept at all times in front of a fireplace.

  I should not, Heimrich thought, have started at the beginning of this ponderously dull book which Homer Lenox was writing. I am like Colonel, bound by habit—bound, now, by the habit of starting at the beginning. The Dutch patroons of the seventeenth century have nothing to do with murder in the twentieth. It is, of course, conceivable that the Van Brunts descended—and how far, indeed, had the Van Brunts descended!—from the Dutch who had owned the valley. It is possible the Van Druytens did.

  And it was all, for a policeman plodding toward a destination already obvious, a waste of time and fading eyesight. Two elderly men had killed each other in a fight, and it didn’t matter what they had fought about, and, even if it did matter, nothing clarifying would appear in the tedious pages of The Families of Putnam County, New York.

  Merton Heimrich roused himself, with some effort, and went to bed. He tried not to waken Susan, in the other bed, but she slept lightly. (She did all things lightly.) She said, “Did you find it, dear? Whatever you were looking for?”

  “Nothing,” Merton Heimrich said. “Go back to sleep, Susan.”

  Susan Heimrich said, “All right,” and did almost at once precisely what she had been told to do.

  Heimrich also went to sleep, somewhat later. He dreamed that Susan was flying and that he was watching her through binoculars for which, in the oddest of places, he had to search. He had to search very fast, had to hurry his search, because otherwise Susan would fly away out of sight. As he searched, he was infuriated by the clumsiness of his hands. And without binoculars, of course, he couldn’t see anything at all….

  “Wake up, dear,” Susan said. “Wake up.”

  “You didn’t really—” Heimrich said, but could not remember what Susan had not really done and said, “Oh,” and reached up and pulled her down to him and kissed her.

  “It would be lovely, darling,” Susan said. “But the Crowley boy is on the telephone. He seems rather excited.”

  Young Trooper Raymond Crowley was, undoubtedly, excited. He was trying to keep excitement out of his voice. He said, “Trooper Crowley, sir,” with almost official detachment. “At the Lenox house, sir.” But then he said, “The damnedest thing,” which was not an official way to report. Heimrich looked at his watch and saw it was a little after eight o’clock and said, “Yes, Ray?”

  “Someone has forced entry,” Crowley said. “Broken into the place. Taken everything out of the room they were killed in and burned it. On the driveway.”

  “Now, Ray,” Heimrich said. “Everything?”

  “All the papers,” Crowley said.

  “Stay there,” Heimrich said. “Call the barracks. Tell them to send the lab boys. I’ll be along.”

  He put the telephone back.

  “Not before breakfast you won’t,” Susan said, and took hold of his arm and led him to breakfast—to coffee and soft-cooked eggs; eggs not really boiled; eggs dropped into boiling water which was at once removed from fire. Merton Heimrich had views about soft-cooked eggs. He ate, too rapidly. He told Susan what he knew of what had happened. He said, “I’m afraid we fouled it up.”

  As he drove down from the house to route 11-F, and north on it, and then climbed back again into the hills above the Hudson, Heimrich was very much afraid they had. They had, it was to be assumed, missed something. They had left Far Top unguard
ed, assuming there was nothing in it to guard. It was all quite reasonable; with it to do over again, he probably would do no more than had been done. A trooper who guards an empty house all night is not available for duty the following day. There are never enough troopers to go around. Heimrich used his car radio to call in, to ask that Sergeant Forniss be instructed to report to Far Top. He drove up the narrow, twisting road to Far Top.

  Crowley’s car was there, its radio talking. Professor Wingate’s ancient black Packard was still there, too. There was a largish black circle on the gravel of the drive, and there had been a burning there. Heimrich went over and looked at it. The burning had been thorough. There were no intact charred remnants which might be reconstructed. The builder of the bonfire had stirred the fire.

  Crowley came out of the house. “The sergeant told me to stop by this morning and have a look,” Crowley said. “Looks like I was late.”

  “Not smoldering when you got here?”

  “Out a good while, sir. Only, I thought I could smell kerosene. I’m not sure, but I thought so. You can’t now.”

  You couldn’t, now. Heimrich could detect only, and that very faintly, the acrid smell of burned paper. There had been a fairly heavy dew to damp things down.

  The lock of the front door had been forced, which had been no trick at all. It had been even less of a trick to force the door of the little room in which the men had died. The seals which Forniss had put on the door had been a formality, not a hindrance.

  It was not quite true that all the papers in the room had been carried out to make a bonfire. Books are of paper, and the books were still there. Books are, in fact, a little hard to burn. Books are stubborn things in fire. But all loose papers—old newspapers, papers with notes written on them, the papers from Homer Lenox’s desk, the many sheets of yellow paper which Lenox had laboriously filled with small neat writing—all these were gone. The room was much neater for their absence.

  They had missed something, or somebody thought they had. It was hard to believe that the two troopers, and Forniss himself, had missed anything—anything important—but it was evident they had. Something, Heimrich thought, going out to stand on the porch, which must have been of very considerable importance. It had been important enough to make somebody tip his hand. To make somebody draw again to what had appeared to be a pat hand.

  Two men kill each other and no third person in it. The temptation to let it lie there must have been almost irresistible. But amateur murderers, unlike those whose business is killing, are inclined not to let well enough alone, to add refinements to a situation quite good enough as is. Of this the police are normally appreciative.

  Heimrich was not appreciative, as he waited for the lab truck, and for men to go over the little room once more, hoping—but not strongly hoping—that new fingerprints had been added, that some identifying trace had been left by whoever had had to build a bonfire. This wasn’t, he suspected, mere amateur fidgeting.

  It’s going to be another hot day, Heimrich thought, facing the morning sun. He heard, distantly, a siren. That would be the lab truck. Merton Heimrich wished he could believe there was all that need to hurry.

  The lab truck came up the curving drive and men got out of it to go into the house and do all over again what they had done the afternoon before. Everything will have to be done over again, Heimrich thought—done over again with, apparently, an important piece now really missing, not merely overlooked. It must, Heimrich thought, have been something so obvious that he cannot believe we will miss it a second time. Why, then, didn’t he take care of it when he was here the first time—here at his killing? Because he was interrupted? By Enid Vance? But the men had been killed before noon and she had not got to Far Top until late afternoon. Time enough to build a bonfire; time enough, come to that, to burn Far Top down entirely. Interrupted, earlier, by someone else? Or, conceivably pressed for time for some other reason? Or—thinking he had got what he had to have and discovering only later that he didn’t have it? Or thinking that the sound of three shots would inevitably be heard and, perhaps wisely, not waiting to find out?

  Apparently the shots had not been heard, or had been dismissed as something of no consequence—as, perhaps, somebody shooting at crows. That would have to be narrowed down, to narrow the time down. And somebody might have seen the bonfire. Narrow that down, too. Somebody at the Mitchie houses might have seen the fire, if somebody had happened to be looking this way. The Mitchie land on its opposite hill was as high as this.

  Forniss’s car came up the steep, curving drive and stopped behind the ancient Packard. Forniss got out of it and walked across the drive and up the steps to Heimrich. “Looks like I slipped up,” Forniss said.

  “We all did,” Heimrich said. “Have a look, Charlie.”

  Forniss went to have a look. He was gone for some minutes. The radios in Crowley’s car and in Forniss’s car continued to chatter. Several birds chattered, too. Heimrich had no idea what kinds of birds chattered so. Lenox, as a bird watcher, probably would have identified their calls at once. Probably they were very ordinary birds.

  Forniss came out and shook his head. “I went over the papers,” Forniss said. “I didn’t see anything. But—” He paused. His never very expressive face was more expressionless than usual. “I didn’t look as hard as I should have,” he said. ‘That sticks out a mile. But—well, I figured that what had happened stuck out a mile, too. That we were just going through the motions.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I guess I did too, Charlie. Happen to look at the stuff in the filing case?”

  “No,” Forniss said. “I figured it would keep.” But then he shook his head. “Nope,” Forniss said. “I figured there was no point to it. I looked in. There wasn’t much.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I guess I figured the same way. Could the manuscript Lenox worked on during the week have been in the filing case?”

  “As to that,” Forniss said. “No. I was looking for that. For anything that looked like being that. You think whoever this was took that? Figured he had what he wanted? Found out later he didn’t have?”

  “Now, Charlie,” Heimrich said. “We don’t even know Lenox wrote anything. But it could have been that way, naturally.” Heimrich closed his eyes. “Don’t take it so hard, Charlie,” Heimrich said. “We both thought we were merely going through the motions. We—”

  He broke off and his eyes opened. One of the car radios—no, both of them together—had spoken his name. He listened. “ Captain M. L. Heimrich. Call the barracks. Captain M. L. Heimrich. Call the barracks.”

  Heimrich went into the house, and to the telephone and called Hawthorne Barracks.

  Hawthorne Barracks wanted to tell Captain M. L. Heimrich, B.C.I., that the Van Brunt Public Library had been broken into during the night. A town policeman—one Asa Purvis—had just noticed the front door partly open, and the wood of the door bruised by the instrument used to open it. Patrolman Purvis had considered the matter one for the state police to deal with.

  There were too many cars in the driveway; Heimrich found his own bottled up. The ancient black Packard was the cork in the bottle. In all respects, a morning of exasperations.

  There was a shuffling of cars—Forniss’s backed out of the way, onto grass; the lab panel truck pulled forward. “Ray!” Heimrich said, and to Ray’s “Yes, sir?” “Get that car of Wingate’s back to the Center, will you? He parks it behind the library, I think. One of the lab boys can bring your car in when they’ve finished.”

  The old Packard—how proudly someone must have driven it when it was young!—did not want to go anywhere. Finally, Ray got it started; it wheezed indignantly. He wrestled with it, backed it in the drive. It occurred to Heimrich, watching from behind the wheel of his own car, that Ray Crowley might never before have driven a car without power steering. The old Packard must be a truck to drive.

  The way was clear. “Come along when you’ve finished here, Charlie,” Heimrich said, and Charles F
orniss said, “Yep.” Heimrich’s car took the way cleared for it.

  First Far Top, then the Van Brunt Public Library. They could rule out coincidence, Heimrich thought, driving the narrow winding road down to 11-F. (It was true that sometimes, when they did that, coincidence turned around and bit them. Assume it wouldn’t this time.) Some person or persons unknown wanted something one of two men had, and wanted it badly. He did not know which man had had it. Call it a document of some sort; both men might have copies. Person Unknown had to find and destroy the document. Had to.

  Patrolman Asa Purvis was standing resolute guard at the library. A state police car was parked in front of it. Heimrich parked behind the police car, after u-turning in Van Brunt Avenue. (Which it was illegal to do.) Purvis, who had been a boy five years ago, a boy wanting to be a cop, wasn’t a boy any more, and was a cop of sorts. He came to attention when Captain Heimrich walked back to the library from the street. He said, “Sir,” and Heimrich said, “Good morning, officer,” although feeling somewhat inclined to pat Asa on the head and call him son.

  “You can see where they used the jimmy,” Asa Purvis said, and pointed, and Heimrich looked. One of the doors had been prized open, and the marks of the tool were plain. “You’re right, Purvis,” Heimrich said. “Good work.” He achieved gravity. Asa Purvis was a good kid; he would probably make the state police college in the fall.

  One of the state troopers who had come in the car was standing just inside the double doors, in the entrance hall from which doors opened on one side into the main reading room, on the other into the stacks. He said, “ ’Morning, sir. Concentrated on the librarian’s office apparently. Down there.” He pointed to a corridor. ‘Trooper Fergus is there, sir.”

  Heimrich went down the corridor, which ended in a door with the word “Librarian” lettered on ground glass. He went into a small office and Trooper Fergus said, “ ’Morning, sir. Somebody really gave it a going-over.”