Going Going Gone

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  “My, what a wonderful evening!” Cummings ignored her shrill shouts as they drove away. “What a treat! I’ll have to hand it to you, Asey. Every time you come home, you manage to scare up a little excitement and get me out of my rut – where were we before that infernal crop of minor ailments stormed into the office?”

  “We were discussin’ Solatia Spry,” Asey said dryly. “You know, somebody’d stabbed her an—”

  “I know! I know! I mean, how far’d we got?”

  “Not very,” Asey said honestly.

  “Well, at least; I’d told you that she was stabbed rather expertly—”

  “Uh-huh, with a fish knife, which I’d already sort of gathered from the handle,” Asey said. “You summed it up as a nice horizontal thrust between the third an’ fourth ribs, delivered by a person or persons unknown, or words to that effect.”

  “And so it was. The knife was razor-sharp, the whole thing was over in a split second, and it was a lot less gory than I’d have imagined such a thing would be,” Cummings said. “Her clothes weren’t disarranged any more than yours would be if you’d been stuffed into a chest that size. She hadn’t struggled or fought with anyone – no marks or bruises on her. I’d say someone stabbed her before she had any idea what was happening. And if you open your mouth and ask me when it happened, I shall probably scream like a panther!”

  “When?” Asey asked promptly.

  “Look, if I’ve said it, once, I’ve said it twenty billion times! Only in books and in the movies do doctors look at a corpse and say something like ‘This individual was murdered at sixteen minutes, four and three-fifths seconds past one o’clock!’ Solatia was killed sometime this afternoon, and you know it as well as I do. You, know perfectly well the only sure way you can tell the time is to place her and follow her movements up to a certain point – say to the auction. After you’ve lost her, that’s probably when she was killed.”

  “Come on, doc!”

  “Oh, from three-ish until five-ish!” Cummings said pettishly. “I don’t know! Not much before three, not much after five – Asey, how in hell did she turn up there in that locked chest?”

  “That,” Asey said, “is what I keep askin’ myself, only I put it the other way around – who deposited her in it, an’ why?”

  “Going, going, gone!” Cummings said meditatively. “You know, this is pretty average grizzly, isn’t it? And I think Quin Sharp was telling the truth. I don’t think he knows anything about it. I think he thought it was just books in the chest! Did he remember any more when you talked with him, while I was busy with the cops?”

  Asey shook his head. “No, an’ he told the cops the same thing he told us. I think he was too confused to improvise, even if he’d wanted to. The reason the chest got brought out so late in the sale was that it just plain got overlooked – easy enough to understand that, with all the truckle they had to sell. Sharp remembered it was unlocked an’ open this mornin’ – he’s got a real vivid picture of a lot of old books. He don’t know at what time the lid was closed. Easy enough to understand that, too, considerin’ he had a lot more important things like the china an’ the antiques an’ such on his mind. He even said he thought of that chest as probably the one item in the whole auction that’d never make for any trouble. An’, of course, that lock is one of those variable things that pops shut any time it feels like it.”

  “Did Sharp remember if it’d had a key?”

  “He thought so. But he’d never had any occasion to use a key because the lock hadn’t ever sprung on him. Probably there was one, an’ – oh, you can’t tell! Some youngster might’ve swiped it, or it might’ve get jounced out when the chest was moved. Nope, Sharp didn’t seem to know any more’n you’d reasonable expect him to, an’ he’s still pretty dumbfounded at Gardner Alden’s biddin’ so high for the chest in the first place.”

  “So’m I,” Cummings returned. “Why did he, anyway? Even back in boom days, I don’t recall anyone paying much more than fifty dollars for a chest, unless it happened to be a perfect crackerjack, which John Alden’s certainly wasn’t – where are we bound, Asey?”

  “I’m toyin’ with the thought.” Asey said, “of callin’ on Gardner Alden at the Inn, an’ inquirin’ into that chest price business. When he left my house, he said it’d been his intention to take the late bus back to Boston an’ return to New York on the midnight to-night, but that under the circumstances he’d stay over. He sounded like he felt he was makin’ a great concession just to stay, an’ he didn’t murmur any polite suggestions about his willingness to explain anything if he could.”

  “I suppose,” Cummings suggested diffidently, “that you’ve considered the possibility that if you’d committed a murder, and had thrust the body of your victim into an old sea chest, it might well be worth three thousand dollars to become the legal owner of the chest? Then you could ship it to – well, say New York. Then you could trans-ship it to someone named John Smith in Seattle. Or Timbuctu.”

  “Somethin’ on that order,” Asey said, “has been flittin’ across my mind from time to time.”

  “Very ingenious,” Cummings said appreciatively. “A lot less hackneyed than just a plain old trunk. How well did Gardner Alden know Solatia, I wonder?”

  “Sharp said she was a very good friend of John Alden’s, so I s’pose we can assume they’d at least heard of each other through him, an’ wasn’t total strangers. I was so busy with Mrs. Turnover faintin’ an’ havin’ hysterics all over my back yard, I didn’t get to look at Gardner’s face after I unlocked the chest. I don’t know what his reaction was then. When I had time to notice him, he was just as tight-lipped an’ deadpan as he’d been before. You know, doc,” Asey said thoughtfully, “about twenty minutes or so before Jennie an’ I left for the auction, I seen him wanderin’ along our lane.”

  “The shore lane? Why, you’d think he’d have been at John’s! What was he doing way over there on your lane, of all places?”

  Asey shrugged. “I don’t know, but I seen him. An’ then on our way to the auction, we saw Solatia Spry startin’ out in her beachwagon – anyway, we took it for granted she was startin’ out, though of course she might just’ve been backin’ for practice, or for the pure fun of it. An’ when we reached the auction, Gardner was already there. Sharp pointed him out to me. But Gardner hasn’t got a car here, an so I wondered—”

  “By George!” Cummings interrupted. “By George, I think you’ve got something, Asey! He couldn’t have hiked that distance from your lane to John’s house in – how much elapsed time? Say less than thirty-five minutes? He must have got a lift from someone in a car! Now, if you saw Solatia backing out – why, of course! It’s as plain as the nose on your face! She knew him, recognized him, and took him over to John’s, where she was going herself – by the way, did anyone settle the time when she actually arrived at the auction? Jennie and Sharp were bickering about that when I left your house.”

  “Jennie never seen her at all, an’ claims she wasn’t there. I phoned some of Jennie’s friends, an’ they agree with her. On the other hand,” Asey said, “Sharp sure he did see her before the sale started, an’ remembers how surprised he was not to find her biddin’ later. He’s positive she was there.”

  “Of course she was there!” Cummings said. “She had to be there. She was put into that chest just about two shakes after she was killed, and the chest was there. Therefore she was, too. Asey, I definitely think you’ve landed on something. It all fits. Gardner’s over your way – heaven knows why. He starts out on foot for the auction, either meets Solatia or is overtaken by her, she picks him up, they drive to John’s together. On the way they have an argument about John’s antiques – didn’t Sharp say that Solatia had some rich client who’d told her to get that china at any cost? Well, she told Gardner that, and he said she was not going to buy it for any rich client, because he was going to have it himself. Then – isn’t this about the way you had it figured out, Asey?”

  “Wa-el,” As
ey began, but before he had a chance to add “No,” Cummings slapped his fist against the red-leather seat.

  “By George, I like it!” he said with enthusiasm. “It all fits! And the upshot of their argument is that Gardner kills her!”

  “An’ puts the body,” Asey said in a gentle voice, “into a sea chest that seems to’ve been sittin’ around in the middle of a millin’ auction crowd?”

  “Oh, that’s your department, thank God!” Cummings said cheerfully. “All you’ve got to do is to figure out how he popped her in, and tie up a few loose ends here and there. A little proof, a little evidence! Then, of course, you can understand why he bid so much for the chest – so he could remove the evidence of his crime. Really, that’s a good, solid motive! That’s something you can put your teeth into! He murdered Solatia so she couldn’t get John’s antiques, and he would.” The doctor paused, and then snorted. “Only he – Asey, why did you let me run on?”

  “It’d work out so nice, wouldn’t it,” Asey said sympathetically, “if only Gardner had got the good stuff, an’ not Mrs. Madison. Yup, if only he’d bought up the good things, we maybe could even pull a little confrontin’ act right now.” He brought the roadster to a stop in front of the Anchor Inn. “We could say, ‘Aha, you done it so’s you could get those antiques an’ that china!’ an’ be real dramatic. But as it is, considerin’ he didn’t hardly bother to bid on anythin’ much except the chest, we can only ask him polite – like why he took it into his head to fork out three thousand for a chest whose contents was described as bein’ books of no value at all.”

  “That three thousand,” Cummings said, “gnaws at my vitals. I’m not going to be able to sit down to a good meal until I learn why he paid three thousand for that chest. And it hasn’t got any secret compartments or hollow boards where any hoard of money could be secreted away, either! I frankly admit I prodded around with a scalpel. Asey, what d’you suppose he’ll give us as a reason for buying it?”

  Asey leaned back against the seat. “If he deigns to say anythin’, it’ll probably be somethin’ to the effect that a man can pay what he wants for a thing he wants at an auction. An’ so he can. Wait a second, doc,” he added as Cummings opened the car door. “I want to figger what I’m goin’ to say when he asks me by what authority I’m questionin’ him. City lawyers aren’t used to our informal ways. I’m inclined to think he’ll just sniff if I tell him the truth, that Sergeant Riley told me that Lieutenant Hanson said for me to carry on till he could get here, because he’s awful shorthanded an’ all tied up with some sabotage problem up the Cape – huh, I know!”

  He opened up the roadster’s glove compartment, pawed around inside it, and finally extracted a small badge.

  “What’s that thing?” Cummings demanded.

  “Honorary Chief of Police,” Asey said. “Town of East Brook End, which is near the Porter Plant. It’s got all the authority of a handful of salted peanuts, but it flashes good.”

  “Haven’t you got one that’s nearer home?”

  “I had a bucket of ‘em,” Asey said, “but Jennie give ‘em to a scrap drive in one of her patriotic moments. I’ll keep my hand over the East Brook End part. Let’s go.”

  And if the badge didn’t work, he thought as he and the doctor mounted the Inn’s front steps, he could always fall back on that peculiar hand-washing episode, and snap out some insinuation about washing blood-stained hands in the pond.

  “Doc,” he paused on the top step, “you said there was mighty little gore involved. Tell me, to what extent would anyone have acquired any stains in the process of puttin’ her into the chest?”

  “Oh, I should say it could have been done without any at all. Probably was – people are careful about that sort of thing, you know, unless they’re the Jack the Ripper type. First thing the average person does with a cut finger is to hold it as far away from ‘em as possible. That knife was like a razor, and the thrust was quick. The whole thing was quick, and neat. Don’t think your man even got his hands stained – that knife handle was as clean as a whistle. You saw that yourself!”

  “In short, no stains?”

  “I don’t think. Of course, Hanson’s experts may be able to tell you differently,” Cummings said. “They’re bears for stains. After a little of their research, they can tell you if whoever moved her had stained hands at the time, or not – though what use that information’ll be to you next week, which is when they’ll probably get to it, I don’t know. Even Dirtyface Jones, that village nitwit over in Skaket, washes his hands once a week, and I’ll wager your murderer has slightly higher standards – oh, hello, Martin! How’s the leg?”

  While Cummings turned to speak to his patient, Asey went on into the lobby and rang the hand-bell that stood on the desk.

  The ancient clerk, whom Asey recognized as the grandfather of the regular clerk, now somewhere in the South Pacific, shook his head at Asey’s request to see Gardner Alden.

  “You can’t see him, Asey, because he ain’t here. He’s gone to the movies. Came downstairs here about fifteen minutes ago, he did, an’ said he’d expected the police to visit him, but he guessed they apparently didn’t intend to, an’ so he was goin’ to the movies.” He nodded toward the movie announcement thumb-tacked on the wall by the desk. “I showed him the programme there, an’ he seemed really pleased with it. Extra long show to-night, you know. He said it sounded like a good show, an’ a bargain at that.”

  Asey glanced casually at the poster, and then he leaned over and scanned it carefully.

  The extra-long bargain show was Stinky O’Leary and Bud Mazutto, the Kings of Slapstick, in “My Jungle Love.” And the cofeature was Two-gun Blaney in “The Lariat Kid.”

  “So he’s gone to the movies,” Asey said. “Huh!”

  “I s’pose,” the clerk said, “you an’ Doc Cummings could go up to his room, if you’d a mind to – pretty terrible thing about Solatia Spry, wasn’t it? She was here for supper only last night an’ had a good hearty meal, poor woman! Well, I s’pose you could look around, only there ain’t much for you to look at. He hadn’t no bags except for a little brief case thing, an’ he took that along to the movies with him. Made a little joke about it, he did. Said he hoped I wouldn’t think he was runnin’ out on his bill, but he had valuable papers in his brief case, an’ he didn’t want us to have the responsibility of ‘em. Nice, considerate sort of feller.”

  “I don’t know him myself,” Asey said, “but I’ve got the impression that he’s – uh – thoughtful, an’ takes what you might call pains. Thanks.”

  Cummings, still talking with his patient, looked up in surprise as Asey emerged from the lobby.

  “Are you going? What’s the matter? Wouldn’t he see you?”

  “He’s out,” Asey said. “Will you be long?”

  “I’m right with you now – just take it easy, Martin, and don’t try to move brick buildings by kicking ‘em, and that leg’ll be all right. Well, Asey,” he said as they returned to the roadster, “what now?”

  “How’d you like to go to the movies?” Asey inquired. “Two-gun Blaney in ‘The Lariat Kid,’ an’ the cofeature is Stinky O’Leary an’ Bud Mazutto, the Slapstick Boys, in ‘My Jungle Love.’ Two for the price of one, an’—”

  “Asey, are you deliberately trying to upset my digestive system?”

  “Also selected short subjects,” Asey said, “includin’ Jimmy Simpers, the Hep Cat’s Pride—”

  “If you’re even remotely serious,” Cummings interrupted, “just drive me back to my treadmill. I’d rather put whitewash on poison ivy, and lance boils, frankly. You don’t really want to see those hideous pictures, do you?”

  “I wouldn’t go if you paid me,” Asey told him, “an’ I keep wonderin’ why they’d appeal to Gardner Alden. But then, I decided once an’ for all, this afternoon, that there was no accountin’ for tastes.”

  “He’s never gone to that frightful show!”

  “Accordin’ to Old Man Baker at the Inn, Gardne
r was practically pantin’ at tho thought. No,” he added as Cummings gave a derisive snort, “I didn’t believe he’d gone, either. Just for the record, I think we’ll drop over an’ find out for sure.”

  “And how d’you expect to go about it?” Cummings wanted to know. “Borrow the usher s flashlight, and make a face-to-face survey?”

  “I thought of askin’ Tim—”

  “Tim’s in the Air Corps. His mother runs the place now.”

  “Wa-el, maybe I can get her to stop the film an’ put the lights on for a second,” Asey said. “Bein’ as how I’ve all but spent the day spottin’ Gardner’s grey suit one place or another, I think it won’t take very long for me to locate him.”

  Ten minutes later, they strolled out of the theatre and got back into the roadster.

  “Even if you don’t know where the man is,” Cummings said, “you at least have the satisfaction of knowing one place where he isn’t. I give you my word, just that brief glance at Two-gun and his carnival of bullets makes me happy to think I never have time to get to the movies any more. Between the Gila Monster that Two-gun’ll kill within the next reel, and the rogue elephant who’ll run amok in that jungle epic, there’ll be an epidemic of nightmares that’ll drag me out of bed a hundred times before morning. And if that was Rosa Silva in the back row, I may be out a war bond before midnight. Asey, why did Gardner lie and say he was going to the movies? D’you think he’s up to some mischief? He ought to have guessed that you could check up on him easily enough!”

  “Uh-huh,” Asey said, “only when you say you’re goin’ to the movies, you don’t hardly expect anyone to follow you an track you down – at least, no city person like him would. He’d just take it for granted that anyone huntin’ him would drop back later to the Inn.”

  “Where’s he gone, d’you think?” Cummings drummed with his fingertips on the car door. “Not to John’s, certainly! There’s nothing there. Over to Solatia’s house, perhaps? I wonder!”