Murder by Latitude

by Rufus King

  “I believe so.” Valcour took three photographs from his pocket—two fairly large ones, and a small one. “I wish that you would look at these,” he said.

  He gave them to her and she stared at them for a second. Ted fled. The draining was complete.

  The past, in its immensity, swept into her like a flood.

  “I know that one,” she said.

  “Yes, Mrs. Poole?”

  “Anna—come here—isn’t this Toody?”

  Anna Wickstod studied the photograph which Mrs. Poole held out to her.

  “Yes, miss,” she said. “That is Toody.”

  * * * *

  Telegram from Commissioner of the New York Police Department to government radio station at Cape May:

  BELIEVE IT FUTILE THAT YOU CONTINUE INCLUDING OUR MESSAGE IN YOUR REGULAR CQ GENERAL BROADCAST ANY LONGER STOP REQUEST YOU ADVISE US HOWEVER SHOULD ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING SS EASTERN BAY BE PICKED UP BY YOU AS WE SHALL ENDEAVOR TO LOCATE HER BY AIRPLANE STARTING AT DAYLIGHT TOMORROW STOP WE ARE ALSO SENDING MESSAGE TO BE HELD BY ALL COAST GUARD STATIONS ALONG SEABOARD STOP YOUR COOPERATION FULLY APPRECIATED

  CHAPTER 42

  LAT. ?° ?' NORTH, LONG. ?° ?' WEST

  “I should like,” Valcour said quietly, “to tell a little story.”

  The statement was, he felt, the starting pistol’s crack, and the curious race was on. The lounge seemed a replica of what it had been during the inquiry on the day before. Valcour sat beside Captain Sohme at its forward end and, with them, was young Swithers. Valcour had given certain instructions to Mr. Swithers, and Mr. Swithers’s hot eyes were staring stonily at the floor. They weren’t seeing the floor. They were seeing his friend Gans’s dead young head. They watched it while that heavier wave had struck the Eastern Bay’s quarter and she had sunk back with a soft sucking shuddering sound into its trough. They watched it move slightly and then, when the Eastern Bay had resumed her methodic gentle roll, they watched it, in its new position, stay quite still. Gans had liked peanuts. In all the ports they had touched at during their coasting down the Argentine Gans and he had eaten, with their beer, God knows how many peanuts. His eyes were hot and he kept them, because he had to, staring stonily at the floor.

  “And a story,” Valcour said, “is made up of one thousand different things, even though it is the shortest story in the world.” His voice was quiet and yet it carried, as it had carried yesterday, to the farthest corner of the saloon where Mr. Dumarque and Mr. Wright were seated on a cushioned settee. It drifted past the Sanfords, and the Misses Sidderby, and Mrs. Poole, who were grouped about a table, and it washed past Mr. Stickney and young Force who, at a smaller table, were perennially engaged in smoking an endless chain of cigarettes. All lights in the lounge were blazing, and the late afternoon, pressing against the ports, was thick murk.

  “Are you not being extravagant, my dear Valcour?”

  “No, Mr. Dumarque. Shall I illustrate? Here is a case that I know of personally. It can be put into a single sentence: A man, his friend, and his wife went swimming, and the man and his wife came back. That is a story. And there are a thousand things congested in its briefness, just as there are in this little one which I am going to tell.”

  “What a blight you would be to publishers,” Mr. Dumarque said.

  Valcour smiled pleasantly. “It is impossible, I believe, to blight a publisher,” he said. (Why didn’t they, young Swithers wanted to know, get on? The heat in his eyes was beginning to spread through his head.) “To understand this story thoroughly, I will ask you to go back with me for about twenty years in the life of Mrs. Poole. I have convinced Mrs. Poole of the necessity for touching upon her personal affairs, and she has expressed her willingness to help me. I am correct, Mrs. Poole?”

  “Quite correct, Mr. Valcour.”

  “Then will you tell us, please, the name of the man you were married to twenty years ago?”

  “Lawrence Lane.”

  “You were quite young at the time?”

  “Very young, Mr. Valcour.” Mrs. Sanford made one audible clucking noise with her tongue, and Mrs. Poole shifted her eyes lazily and looked at her. “Scarcely more than a child,” she said.

  “The point I wish to make is that your judgment and your desires were not as mature as they are now. You found Mr. Lane agreeable, Mrs. Poole?”

  “Very.”

  “He gave you everything you wanted?”

  “Everything.” Mrs. Sanford’s “Butterfly!” was as poorly suppressed as a censored book, and dripped lingeringly through Mrs. Poole’s added “Materially.”

  “He was considerably older than you, Mrs. Poole?”

  “Twenty-five years older, Mr. Valcour.”

  “There were no children from this marriage?”

  “None.”

  “And yet you wanted a child?”

  “I wanted one very much. I wanted a baby girl.”

  “Why, Mrs. Poole?”

  “Why?” Her smile was a little hard. “To play with, I think.”

  Miss Sidderby was shocked and showed it. Her “Not to love?” was impulsive. Surely the most important thing, for which one wanted little children, was love…

  Mrs. Poole’s stare was embarrassing. “I’m not attempting to conform to the regulations set down for a heroine in a melodrama, Miss Sidderby,” she said. “I am trying, by accuracy, to assist Mr. Valcour as much as I can.”

  Miss Sidderby started to flutter nervously with an “I’m sure—” and Mr. Stickney’s pointed reference to a sauce composed of apples were cut sharply by Valcour.

  “You expressed this desire to Mr. Lane, Mrs. Poole?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “He was in the habit, was he not, of fulfilling your desires at once?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know just how to put this, but have you any recollection of the state that Mr. Lane was in at the time when you made this request?”

  “State? I don’t think I understand.”

  “I mean busy. Occupied with business affairs. Was he rushed in any way?”

  “Yes, he was. It wasn’t business—Larry had no connection with any business—but he was pretty well tied up, just then, with polo. He played on the American team, you see.”

  “At the moment, then, that would have occupied pretty completely his attention and his time?”

  “Quite completely.”

  “And yet he did find the time to procure a child for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “A girl, Mrs. Poole?”

  “A girl, Mr. Valcour.” Her smile toward Mrs. Sanford was touched with cement as she added, “The sex was included in the specifications. Her name was Toody—it is what we always called her—and her age was about five.”

  “You were acquainted with her full name?”

  “Ethel Farnsworth.”

  “And her origin?”

  “Parents?”

  “Where she came from, rather than from whom.”

  “Larry was never clear on that point. I was almost a child myself, as I’ve told you, and in many ways he used to treat me as one. He told me”—her smile was mechanical—“that Toody came from a bed of marigolds.”

  “But the man must have been charming!”

  Mrs. Poole’s smile broadened slightly. “I frequently found him so, Mr. Dumarque. That is why I married him. It amused me to find poetry in a person so utterly physical. I have realized since, of course, that the apparent phenomenon is quite commonplace. It is incredible the number of athletes who have a flair for Swinburne.”

  Mr. Wright’s “It’s like my singing” was lost in Valcour’s “With the exception of marigolds, Mrs. Poole, was nothing definitely said at all?”

  “Not then, Mr. Valcour. Later, of course—when Larry and I split up.”

  “He left the girl with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “He gave you more details about her?”

  “Yes. He had found her through a friend, a woman connected with social
welfare work. I’m sure there wasn’t anything irregular about it—about his getting Toody, I mean. Nothing definitely was agreed upon about adopting her, although Larry may have given the impression that legal adoption might come later, if we cared to. There was simply an understanding that the girl should come and live with us and that we would take care of her—provide for her.”

  “You have told me that a woman came with this child as a nurse.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that when the child left you it developed that this woman was her aunt. What caused her to tell you of the relationship?”

  “Money, chiefly, I suppose.”

  “For the child?”

  “Just for money, I imagine.”

  “And why did you get rid of the child, Mrs. Poole?”

  “That’s rather a strong way of putting it, don’t you think? I sent Toody away because my second husband, Harris Jones, objected to children.”

  “And Toody’s aunt objected to her being sent?”

  “Exactly. She made a scene. I have a distaste for scenes, so I placed the whole matter in the hands of my lawyers.”

  “Do you remember the aunt’s name?”

  “Sarah Malloy.”

  “Mrs. Poole, I think you provided through your lawyers for the support of this child?”

  “Yes.”

  “You also made provision for her in your will?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this fact was made known in an indirect fashion to the child’s aunt by your lawyers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know whether the yearly checks which were sent by your lawyers for this child’s provision were made out to the child, Mrs. Poole?”

  “No, Mr. Valcour. They were made out to the aunt.”

  “Even after Toody grew up, this practice was continued?”

  “Yes. The checks were always made out to the aunt.”

  “You felt, did you not, when these checks were returned undelivered, starting with two or three years ago, that Toody had either married or no longer needed your support?”

  “I did.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that the aunt might have died?”

  Mrs. Poole stared at Valcour curiously, and Mr. Sanford, having burned himself with his cigarette, gave a short bleat.

  “Why, no,” Mrs. Poole said. “But suppose she had? All Toody would have had to do would have been to inform my lawyers of the fact, and the checks would have been made out to her directly.”

  “That is true, Mrs. Poole, if Toody had been as she was represented.”

  “What do you mean by that, Mr. Valcour?”

  “Think back, Mrs. Poole. Neither you nor her governess ever took care of Toody. It was always this woman, who was her aunt, who attended to her. Well, has it never struck you that this child might have been a boy?”

  CHAPTER 43

  LAT. ?° ?' NORTH, LONG. ?° ?' WEST

  Young Swithers kept his hot eyes still staring at the floor, and his face felt very cold and a little wet. He did not dare stop staring at the floor, because if his eyes ever moved across the groups of people sitting so tensely in that little lounge, they’d hesitate—they’d move no farther than one single place—and Mr. Valcour’s instructions had been absolute. That Poole woman was talking again. She was breaking, the nervous stillness with her hard and cold sort of voice, and saying, “I see what you mean, of course.” But the idea was genuinely astonishing to her. “With a child of that age, constantly in the care of an aunt, it would have been quite possible—but why?”

  Valcour shrugged. “The aunt? You’ve touched upon her greed for money. Your knowledge of the child’s origin is vague at best. This friend of Mr. Lane’s, the social welfare worker, could conceivably have been imposed upon. I run into them occasionally in my line of work, these social welfare workers. They’re exceedingly earnest but I do have the feeling that sometimes they’re just a little—well, dumb. I think there’s something, not queer exactly, but a little lacking, in anyone who takes up that line of work, don’t you?”

  “Based on repressions?”

  “Possibly—something unfortunate in their own home life—any number of reasons. Certainly there’s some incentive that isn’t normal. That’s my opinion. I think this child was passed off as a girl. The aunt might well have been dazzled into doing so with the prospect of adoption by a wealthy family in view. She may have felt, you see, that by the time you might have decided to legalize the arrangement you would have grown so fond of the child that its sex wouldn’t have mattered. And I think that that is why,” Valcour smiled faintly, “I am aboard this ship.”

  “Because Toody was a boy?”

  “No, Mrs. Poole. Because Toody was forced to masquerade as a girl.”

  “I don’t think I quite understand what you mean?”

  “But yes!” Mr. Dumarque’s enthusiasm almost carried him to his feet. “I see exactly, my dear Valcour—and you are right.”

  “Perhaps you could explain it better than I, Mr. Dumarque?”

  “Not better—no, no, never better, but it is so plain to me, in one flash. Behold this child!” Mr. Dumarque, by now, was on his feet, and carried by them to the center of the lounge. “Behold him at the age of five. They have minds, my dear Valcour, these little children at the age of five. And what do we see? It is apparent, from the fact that a welfare worker procured him, that the child’s circumstances were poor. What then? Let us go what we call here in America the whole pig. We will picture, please, this aunt. Would one not say she was an austere woman, Mrs. Poole?”

  “I never observed her very closely, Mr. Dumarque.”

  “But she must have impressed you in some manner?”

  “Negatively; just as a background for the child.” Mr. Dumarque looked a little piqued at this check to his picture. “It is essential that she should have been an austere woman. Austerity, of course, in the sense to which I refer, is not one of appearance. Permit me to point out that the sting of certain types of jellyfish is deadly poison.”

  Mrs. Poole, with her earlier picturing of Mrs. Sanford in the probable role of Toody’s aunt, was decisive in her agreement. “But you’ve hit it exactly, Mr. Dumarque. That is just what she was—a somewhat solidified jellyfish.”

  “I am enchanted, my dear Mrs. Poole. You have given me my sting. Very well, what does she do? She stings. She poisons this child as definitely as if she had inserted some vicious serum into its veins. For four whole years she compels it to keep up this tragic masquerade. And there is no masquerade in this whole big world more tragic than one of sex. Am I not right, my dear Valcour? Is it not these things which you mean?”

  “It is, Mr. Dumarque. I see this child as you see it—its mind rather hideously warped during the most impressionable years of its life. Stamped irremediably.”

  “And we are reaping now the harvest from that sowing.”

  “The harvest, Mr. Dumarque, has been reaped already.” But it wasn’t, Valcour felt, completely so as yet. Never, than at this instant when the case was all but concluded, had he felt so near to failure, or so close to dread. It clung about him limply, like the fog that spread outside upon the breathless sea, this dread—which rats, as he had thought, must feel before they quitted a ship. He stared at the people around him: at Captain Sohme, in granite, and young Swithers, some ice that was melting from an inner sun—at young Force and Stickney faintly clouded with blue from their innumerable cigarettes—at Mr. Dumarque returning to his place on the settee beside Mr. Wright, whose pudgy face was a shining white moon devoid of craters—and at the larger table where Mrs. Poole was sitting, the Sanfords near her, and the Misses Sidderby, who were two frightened mice quite rigid from the awareness of some unseen cat. He stared at all these people and he was afraid—for them and for himself.

  Mr. Dumarque, again on the settee, lighted a cigarette and formed three perfect rings. “You will tell us, I am sure, my dear Valcour, just what the crop has been?”

  “The death of thre
e men.”

  “Three? But really—” Even Mr. Dumarque was at a loss for words. “I am afraid the man will suffer the fate of all good gluttons and kill himself in the end.”

  “I don’t think so. That will be attended to by the State of New York—the scene of his first crime.” Valcour smiled a little. “Can you guess who the victim was, Mr. Dumarque?”

  “But naturally—his aunt?”

  “I said three men.”

  “I do not care what you say, my dear Valcour. It is as apparent to me as the fact that the sun and moon both rise, that this man would kill his aunt. After that, if you wish, he could start bagging his men.”

  “Perhaps you are right. He will tell us presently. Of course, the satisfactory thing is that definite proof of only one of the murders is all that will be required to electrocute him. Do you care to guess again as to his first?”

  Miss Sidderby didn’t think she could stand it much longer. It was like a dreadful game, such as people sometimes played in unnatural dreams. You were asked a question and when you answered something bad happened to you. (This invariably happened to Miss Sidderby after any day during which she had been reading the newspaper accounts of evidence given during any trial.) She knew that the ship was riding smoothly on a plate-glass sea, but the lounge was a gentle whirlpool and she alone in it was sitting still and that queer Mr. Dumarque in his darkened corner was saying, “You have me at a loss.”

  “The first victim was Mr. Lawrence Lane.”

  “The man who acquired him and gave him to Mrs. Poole. Of course, my dear Valcour. I grow stupid.”

  “Why should he kill Larry?” Mrs. Poole said.

  Valcour stared at her thoughtfully. “Put yourself in his place, Mrs. Poole. You have been forced into an unnatural masquerade. You have been promised great things. You have been threatened. You have been pampered. You have been warped. And then, when all these things have been done to you, you have been thrown out as a useless toy that is no longer desired.”

  “You are wrong!”

  “I am right. When you tell me that you got rid of that child because your second husband objected to children, I do not believe you.”