“It was nice of you to worry, Beany, but I should have thought when you found I was with Mr. Cain …”
“The police do make mistakes,” Beany said. “They could be wrong about Mr. Cain. I wasn’t taking chances.” Then Beany threw back his head and laughed. “I wish you’d been here! The inspector evidently has a bee in his bonnet about Robert … started asking him questions about Lydia. If he only knew, Robert would pass out with fright if any woman actually said ‘yes.’ ”
“Then you don’t think Robert could have been Lydia’s man?” Margo asked quietly.
“Robert? Margo, don’t be ridic! Try giving in sometime when he makes one of his artistic little passes at you, dear. You’ll be blinded by his dust!”
“I think I’ll just take your word for it, Beany,” Margo said. “You like your scrambled eggs wet or dry?”
“Wet,” said Cain,
“Dry, for heaven’s sake!” said Beany.
Chapter Fifteen
1
It was past two in the afternoon when Cain woke up. He had slipped into the Stoddard house in broad daylight. Richards had been setting the breakfast table.
As he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, he realized that the six hours or so of sleep had not rested him much. He had been through a series of tortuous nightmares in which somebody … a woman … was trying to push him off high places. He’d feel quite safe and happy and then he would find himself on the edge of a tremendous drop and the woman would be pushing him, with terrible strength, from behind. The woman never took on any recognizable shape. Sometimes he thought it was Carol; sometimes Margo; sometimes Mrs. Wilder, with her bracelets clanking like a suit of armor; sometimes Julie Rosokov; sometimes Emily, explaining briskly that it was the only way to get bundles to Britain.
Cain got up, shaved, brushed his teeth, and lit a cigarette.
The session at eggs and coffee with Margo and Beany had led nowhere. They talked about Summers, mostly. The long walk had restored Margo’s calm. They didn’t go into the murder itself. It was talk about Summers’ career, his days as a singer in the opera, the hundreds of stars all over the country who owed their success to Summers’ patient teaching.
Beany was concerned about the book. Margo assured him that more than ever it was necessary to finish it. Summers had always told her that she was the beneficiary under a hundred-thousand-dollar insurance policy. If this was so, she would have the funds to pay Beany to continue his work. And if it wasn’t so, she was certain Emily Stoddard would want the book completed.
Cain left when his eyes began to droop. “Any time you want to enter the Boston marathon I’ll vouch for your qualifications,” he told Margo.
Cain had gone to sleep thinking about Bradley and his curious behavior. The only explanation was that the inspector was willing, even anxious, to have the others consider that he, Cain, was also suspect. The murderer might relax his guard if he heard that Bradley was focused in another direction.
When he had dressed Cain went downstairs. The Stoddard family seemed to have gone about their business. Richards produced some coffee and toast and Cain sat alone in the huge dining room, emptying the electric percolator. Very slowly, out of the hecticness of the last twenty-four hours, a picture of the way Summer had died was emerging for Cain … a picture which he didn’t like.
If you accepted Bradley’s premise that Summers was not alone when he died, that he was talking with someone in the studio, that he went into the lavatory to wash his eyes, that he screamed out in pain; then you had to believe that Summers willingly let this person who was with him lead him out to the elevator, ostensibly to get him to a doctor. Would Summers have let the person he thought was Bill’s murderer take charge of him? In spite of the unendurable torture wouldn’t he, realizing that the burning out of his eyes was deliberate, have barricaded himself away from the person he suspected?
There was another point which Cain found it difficult to negotiate. How could the murderer have made certain that he would be alone with Summers when the acid was used? Because there could be no point in simply blinding Summers. He would still be able to talk to the police.
Cain saw two possibilities. One, that the murderer had helped Summers prepare his eye bath. That spelled Margo, no matter how you tried to duck it. Summers wouldn’t have expected that kind of intimate assistance from anyone else … would have undoubtedly declined help if it had been offered.
The second way it could have happened must be the answer. The murderer was talking with Summers. Summers had said something about bathing his eyes. The murderer had asked if he might use the lavatory first. The substitution was made then. In that case, Summers must have had no suspicion of his visitor.
And there was a third point. It was the problem of opening the door to the elevator shaft from the outside. It could be done, by putting your hand through the old-fashioned grille work. But it had to be a person with a small hand. Cain knew that, because he had tried it himself when he left the hall that morning and he hadn’t been able to squeeze his hand through the grille. Almost, but not quite. Cain had large hands. Someone else might have made it ... just.
“So what do you have, chum?” he asked himself.
You had the picture of a murderer with a smallish hand, someone Summers trusted. Certainly any of the women could have managed the trick with the elevator door; possibly Edgar or Royce or Beany Cook. One man was definitely out. That was Rosokov whose huge paw was even larger than Cain’s. And Royce? Royce was the person Summers suspected!
At the time it didn’t cross Cain’s mind that he was doing exactly what he had warned Carol and Margo not to do. He was playing detective. He had to know about Julie Rosokov. She had had an appointment with Summers. She might have kept it. The little Russian woman would have needed some elaborate scheme such as the eyewash and the elevator shaft to do away with a strong, healthy man like Summers.
“She is terrible when she is angry,” Rosokov had said. He had meant it as a joke.
2
Cain made two telephone calls before he left the house, only one of which was successful. He tried to reach Margo or Beany Cook to find out whether Julie Rosokov or Summers himself had broken her appointment for the afternoon before. Or whether, in view of the impending session with the police, it had been taken for granted there would be no lesson. This point he was not able to clear up because no one answered the phone at Summers’ studio.
The other was to the Rosokovs. Julie, who answered, said they would be very pleased to have him call. Cain wondered, as he rode downtown in a taxi, if it mightn’t have been wiser to drop in on them. If there was any reason for Julie to cook up a story and she hadn’t already done so, he had served a warning.
The Rosokovs lived in a studio room on the top floor of an old brownstone, adjoined by a bedroom which looked scarcely large enough to accommodate Madame Rosokov alone, and a kitchenette. The studio room seemed intended for the sterner life. There were no rugs, no pictures. Only a Steinway grand in a corner, a day bed against one wall, a monstrous armchair for the master, and a small armchair for the mistress. The few other chairs were of the straight-backed kitchen variety, in varying stages of collapse.
Julie let Cain into the apartment. One look at her and he felt his suspicions evaporating. She was so tiny, so delicate. Rosokov, his hairy chest exposed by an open white shirt, was standing by a table across the windows.
“Come in, come in!” he bellowed. He was pouring some transparent liquid from a bottle into three water glasses. “I am expecting you to coming to see me.”
“You’re doing fine,” said Cain. “I only thought of it myself about fifteen minutes ago.”
“My telephone is ringing all day,” Rosokov said. “What shall we do, Rosokov? Where shall we going for our voice lessons?’ Naturally they are asking me because I am Rosokov.”
“I get it,” said Cain.
“Here,” said Rosokov. “Drinking this! I cannot taking my walk today because everyone is both
ering me. People and newspaper men.”
“A nice distinction,” Cain said. He took the glass from Rosokov. “What is it?”
“But vodka!” Rosokov said.
“What’s the theory? I never had any.”
“You are drinking it down because you may not liking the taste,” Rosokov explained. “But you will liking what it is doing for you. You are liking this room?”
“It’s large,” said Cain.
“When you are singing in a room you cannot having curtains and much furniture to deadening the sound,” Rosokov explained. “Here, Julie. We will drinking to the future.”
“There’s a little stuff in the past to clean up,” Cain said, “but we can skip it for a moment.” He swallowed the vodka and decided that he was as near death by strangling as he had even been.
“Julie and I have talking the whole thing over,” Rosokov said. “Dozens of helpless people are wondering what is to becoming of them now that Arthur is dead. Where will they going? What will they doing with their voices? Well, it is Rosokov who will shouldering the burden. I have listening to you singing the other night and I am willing to taking you on.”
“That’s great,” said Cain, “but I’m not sure … ”
“Here! Drinking to the future,” said Rosokov. He refilled their tumblers. “You have gotting an instrument there,” he said, jabbing a finger at Cain’s chest. “But you must learning to supporting the voice on the breath.” He raised his glass. “To the future.”
Cain drank with them and put down his glass on the table with a shudder. He’d play it smart, he told himself. He’d wait to question Julie until she and Rosokov got a little oiled.
“Here, feeling my stomach,” said Rosokov.
Cain felt it. It was hard as a board.
“Hitting me!” said Rosokov.
“You mean you want me to hit you in the stomach?”
“Sure, sure. Doubling up your fist and hitting me.”
Cain hit him. The effect on his knuckles was not good. “Of course that’s only my left hand,” he said apologetically.
“When I am finished with you, you too will having a stomach like mine.”
“Hey, watch it,” said Cain. Somehow there was another tumbler of vodka in his hand.
“Drinking to the future,” said Rosokov.
“Yeah,” said Cain, “To the future.” He looked at Julie. He found himself squinting. “There you are,” he said, “hiding in that armchair.”
“I am taking the pickings of the good pupils and the rest Rosokov is having no time for. Telling Mrs. Stoddard not to worrying about you.”
Cain said he knew Mrs. Stoddard would be glad not to have anything to worry about. He stared gloomily at Julie. It was pretty lousy of her to hide down behind the arm of that chair. He couldn’t ask her what he had come to ask her if she insisted on hiding because after all …
“Drinking to the future!” said Rosokov.
Cain said what they ought to have was a pipe line running from the west to the east with pure clean vodka. He said there ought to be engineers who could cope with the problem.
Rosokov slapped him on the back and Cain felt his knees buckle.
“When you are having trouble,” Rosokov said, “vodka is fixing it. Julie is saying to me, ‘Dmitni, your stomach is coming full of holes.’ My stomach!” He laughed. “Doubling up your fist and hitting me!”
Cain said they had been into that. He said he was grateful there were no pictures on the walls or they would fall down when Rosokov laughed. “Laughter,’ Cain said, “is the Great Leveler.”
“This I am not understanding,” Rosokov said. His voice sounded like the trains running under Park Avenue.
“Your voice sounds like the trains running under Park Avenue,” Cain said. He said as to just exactly what the Great Leveler was he had not the remotest idea. He said the real reason he had come to see Rosokov was because he wanted to talk. “Dying to the right of me, dying to the left of me, into the valley of death … ” Cain said he was sorry but he couldn’t remember the rest of the quotation but if Rosokov insisted he would look it up when he got home.
“Home, home on the range!” Cain burst into song.
“Where the deer and the antelope play!” It was a shattering duet now.
“Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy or gray.”
Cain said he felt sad. He said that song always made him feel sad. He said if people only realized what a lot of difference an encouraging word would make to a guy along the road of life. He said the only experience on a range he’d ever had was trying to get a fire started in one for his mother.
“I am not getting the point,” said Rosokov earnestly. “But we will drinking to it.”
“The point,” said Cain, choking over more vodka, “is that the kindling must be cut very fine. Very fine indeed. Any fool knows that you can’t have a proper life on the range with coarse kindling.” He said if there was anything in the world worse than a discouraging word it was coarse kindling. He asked Rosokov to think where they would be today if there had been less coarse kindling in Europe! “That,” said Cain, “gives you pause.”
“What is this giving you pause?” Rosokov said. It seemed to Cain that Rosokov had removed himself to a great distance.
“It’s very simple,” he said. “For example, Mussolini is Hitler’s cat’s paws.” He brightened. “Say, that’s good!” He turned to the armchair which concealed Julie. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said. “I had a purpose in coming here, Julie. A purpose is something you see swimming in schools from the deck of an ocean liner.”
Julie peeped out around the corner of the chair. All four of her eyes were very wide, “Oh, Dmitri!” she said in a small voice.
“Maybe we should talking over this tomorrow,” Rosokov suggested.
“I know when I’m not wanted,” said Cain. “No one has to tell a Cain when he is not wanted. But I should like to ask one favor of you before I go.”
“Sure, sure,” said Rosokov.
“I would like to try some vodka if you have some in the house,” said Cain, “because I have never had the pleasure of tasting any.”
***
Somehow he was in a taxicab. They were going places but he couldn’t for the life of him remember having told the driver what places. In fact he couldn’t remember getting into the cab.
“Did I tell you where to go, chum?” he asked.
“Hell, I didn’t know you could talk,” said the driver. “I’m supposed to be taking you to 666 Fifth Avenue, although it sounds like a screwy address for you.”
“It is, however, eminently correct,” said Cain. Then he laughed. “It’s a funny thing,” he said, “but I went to ask a lady a question.”
“She must of said ‘no’ or you wouldn’t be feeling so good.”
“I never got to ask her,” said Cain. “Do you think she did it?”
“You’re way ahead of me, Mac.”
“It’s perfectly clear,” said Cain. “Did she or did she not commit the murder?”
“She done it,” said the driver, “with her little hatchet. Here we are, pal, and you better let me give you a hand.”
Cain said he did not want a hand but if the driver had a key to the front door he would consider it a favor. After some persuasion the driver persuaded him that if there was a key he, Cain, had it.
“Amazing,” said Cain. “Amazing, my dear Holmes.” He produced the key.
“The name is Kaplan and I don’t mind unlocking the door for you.”
He gave the driver a five dollar bill with a magnanimous wave of his hand. Then he found himself in the gothic hall of the Stoddards’ house. It seemed very cool and peaceful. Obviously, his objective was the stairway, and if he could navigate that, his room and a nap. “I should have had Rosokov sing me the Vodka Boatman,” he said to no one in particular. He started toward the stairs.
Then he became cons
cious of a voice from the library. A woman’s voice. It was familiar, but so harsh and angry that he couldn’t quite place it in his condition.
“Why deny it?” the voice said. “I have proof. You were Arthur’s mistress for years. What a fool I was not to realize it. What a fool I was not to guess that was why he would never marry. And then you lost your head. You thought he was playing around with Lydia. You killed Bill because he’d found out. You killed Arthur because you were eaten up with jealousy. You … ”
“Stop it, Margo! Stop it!” That was Carol’s voice, near hysteria.
Cain made his way unsteadily to the library door and leaned against the jamb. Margo’s back was to him. Carol was facing Margo.
“Now, now, Margo,” said Cain, wagging his finger at her, “you mustn’t say those things about Carol. My intended wife, you know … or so the stars say.”
Margo whirled around on him, her eyes blazing.
“I’m stinko,” said Cain confidentially. “But I know a calum a cal ... a cal-urn-ny when I hear one.”
“I’m not talking about Carol! I’m talking about her!” Margo said. She had lashed herself into a fury. Her finger shook as she pointed across the room.
Cain peered through a haze and saw Emily. She was behind the big center table, holding onto it for support.
“Why, Emily Stoddard!” said Cain. “What I know about you!”
And then, inconsiderately, the floor rose up and smacked him on the side of the head.
Chapter Sixteen
1
Cain opened his eyes. He couldn’t see anything because of the cold, wet towel over his forehead. He reached up feebly to remove it.
“Are you feeling better, sir?” said someone at his elbow. It was Richards, the butler.
“Where am I?” Cain muttered. His mouth tasted full of flannel.
“On your own bed, sir, in your own room.”
Cain said: “What town am I in?” He tried sitting up and then let his head sink back on his pillow. He made a low, moaning sound. “The OGPU got me,” he said.
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