Then he surveyed the small figure on the couch.
In all the times he’d seen the rope trick, he thought, he’d never seen a small Cub Scout tackle a full-grown air-raid warden.
“I s’pose,” he said casually, “she admits to sabotagin’ the beachwagon, too?”
Hanson wanted to know what beachwagon he was talking about.
“Solatia Spry’s, If Miss Pitkin admitted to doin’ everything else, she’s most probably responsible for lettin’ the air out of Solatia’s tyres, too.”
Asey spoke to Hanson, but his eyes never left Miss Pitkin. He’d noticed that she’d stopped sobbing, and he had an idea that she was listening intently.
“I never knew about that!” Hanson said”
“Didn’t you? An’ the phone wire,” Asey told him, “was also cut.”
“I never knew—” Hanson began, and then stopped abruptly.
Miss Pitkin was stirring.
With a quick movement, she twisted herself up from her prone position, and sat up on the horsehair sofa.
Asey watched with interest as she smoothed her blonde curls back into place, straightened out her skirt, and patted down the collar of her blue dress.
Then she smiled sweetly at him.
“That’s the only thing I did do!” she said, and Asey realized that Cummings had described her mode of speech with amazing accuracy. She didn’t quite lisp, but if you didn’t listen sharply, she sounded as if she did. “I cut her phone and let the air out of her tyres. I did that yesterday afternoon.”
“Did you, now!” Asey answered because no one else in the room seemed capable of making any response whatsoever. “Was you sore about John Alden’s things, or sore about the gas an’ the tyres?”
“The gas and tyres. I didn’t have a dog’s chance with John’s stuff, and I knew it,” Miss Pitkin returned. “Not with Mrs. Madison, and Paul Harmsworth, and Gardner Alden! No, I came over here yesterday – oh, it must have been around one o’clock – to make one last effort to bully her into being decent. I’d tried every way I could think of, and this was a last resort. You see, I’d pretended that I’d written to Maxim Harvey – he’s the collector who wanted John’s china so badly – and I decided if I was going to succeed in scaring her that way into doing anything for me, I’d have to do it before the auction started. D’you understand?”
“Uh-huh. An’ did you?”
Miss Pitkin smiled her wide-eyed, guileless smile at him.
“No. She said I was lying, which was true enough. She knew, because she’d been talking to Harvey on the phone that morning. I knew then that I was licked. I pretended to drive away, but I only went down the road a bit. Then I walked back and waited till I saw her go down to her garden,” Miss Pitkin said, “and then I went and let the air out of her tyres, and cut her phone wire with a pair of her own garden shears. I didn’t think it would get me anywhere, heaven knows. It was just the way I felt about her. And that’s all I ever did.”
“You told me,” Hanson shouted, “you told me that you’d write a confession! A. full confession of the whole business!”
“It’s a woman’s privilege to change her mind,” Miss Pitkin told him gently. “I changed mine. I decided I’d make a full confession, verbally, to Asey Mayo instead. And I’ve just made a full confession to him!”
“When I asked you if you did things, you kept nodding!” Hanson roared. “You said you killed her! You admitted killing her!”
“When anyone bellows at you like a bull, it’s always easier to agree with them and shut them up than to disagree and make them bellow like two bulls,” Miss Pitkin said. “Besides, I was terribly, terribly confused. You confused me by—”
“You wept! You cried! You—”
“Oh, I always cry when I’m confused, and don’t know just what else to do,” Miss Pitkin said easily. “Always. It gives you time to think. I didn’t have anything to do with any bindings or gagging people, or with killing Solatia Spry! Heaven knows I’ve wanted to get rid of her often enough, but not actively, you know. I mean,” she turned to Asey, “I don’t think I ever exactly wished that someone would kill her. I just wished she’d move away, or go on a long, long journey. Or something like that.”
“You mean to sit there and tell me now that you didn’t kill her?” Hanson demanded.
“Yes, I sit here,” Miss Pitkin said, “and tell you that no, I didn’t! You ask the most utterly impossible questions – no one could give you a straight answer! All I’m responsible for is the car tyres and the phone.”
“Prove it!” Hanson said promptly. “Prove it! Prove,” his voice rose, “prove you didn’t kill her!”
“I’m sure I can,” Miss Pitkin returned, “but if you don’t stop yelling at me in that tone of voice, I’m darned if I will!”
“Attagirl, Eunice!”
Every head in the room turned toward the newcomer standing in the doorway.
He was a tall man in a crumpled blue suit; he was smiling cheerfully, and his head was as bald as a billiard ball.
“Attagirl, Eunice!” he strolled into the room and unconcernedly perched himself on the corner of a marble-topped table. “Don’t let him bully you. You didn’t do it, and you can prove it!”
“Who are you?” Hanson swung around and glared at him belligerently.
“If you ask Eunice, she’ll tell you I’m probably the best maker of reproductions in the antique business. If you ask Alden, there,” he indicated Gardner, “he’ll tell you I’m a dirty faker and a rotten crook. Ought to be in a jail this minute.”
“Say, what are you talking about? What do you mean? Who are you?” Hanson demanded.
“I mean that I once sold Alden a reproduction, and I told him it was a reproduction, and he didn’t believe me and thought it was an original. When he found out I’d told him the truth, he became very angry. The name,” he added, “is Harmsworth. Paul Harmsworth. I’m glad to find you, Mr. Mayo.” He grinned at Asey. “Your cousin thought you’d be here.”
“What’s all this business to you?” Hanson asked suspiciously before Asey had a chance to speak.
“Solatia was a good friend of mine. I feel rather strongly about her being killed. She hasn’t any family, and I thought it would be proper for me to see that arrangements were made about her, and all. I also thought,” Harmsworth said, “that I’d like to find out who killed her.”
“Oh, you did!” Hanson looked at him fixedly. He was, Asey noted, in what Cummings always referred to as a pre-confront mood. “You were here last night, Mr. Harmsworth, weren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, I was. I—”
“Aha! It was you,” Hanson said, “who bound and gagged Alden and my officer! You’re more of a size for that sort of thing! You did that!”
“No,” Harmsworth said, “I didn’t. Matter of fact, Captain,” he gave Hanson a tactful jump in rank which Hanson didn’t trouble to correct, “I was bound and gagged, myself. Not here, but—”
“Where?” Hanson interrupted. “Who did it?”
“If I’m not sufficiently moved about the affair to make the effort of reporting it, or lodging an official complaint, what does it matter where or who?” Harmsworth said. “I was over here, yes, and I think I ran into the person you’re after, because all the air was let out of my tyres, and—”
“She did that!” Hanson pointed to Eunice Pitkin. “She’s the one—”
“No, she’s not the tyre-air letter-outer,” Harmsworth said. “She was home with her mother, her father, her sisters, and her aunts – you were, weren’t you, Eunice? I told you to stay there.”
“I never moved from the house last night,” she assured him.
“Good!” Harmsworth said. “Now, before you run off on any more tangents. Captain, let’s settle a few facts. I went to the auction with Eunice. I sat with her during it. I went home with her to look at some glass she wanted me to tell a dealer about. My helper was with us all the time. In other words, there are two witnesses to prove that Eunice ha
d nothing to do with Solatia’s murder.”
Hanson looked a little abashed for a moment. Then he recovered.
“What about those letters?” he said with triumph. “When I came here, I found her stealing letters she’d written to Solatia Spry! Threatening letters! You can’t get her out of that one!”
Harmsworth didn’t even try. “I was afraid, Eunice, that you couldn’t resist the impulse to come here and take those!” he said with regret. “And God knows you never should have touched her beachwagon! That was unworthy of you. But Mayo will probably understand that you acted on impulse, and he’ll cool off this do – er – the captain, here.”
“Harmsworth,” Gardner Alden said suddenly, “just what were you and your helper talking about on the bus yesterday morning? Just what did you mean when you spoke of the possibility of Solatia’s not getting to the auction, or not getting there in time?”
“Really want to know, Alden? Joe and I were discussing you.”
“Me?”
“You,” Harmsworth said with a smile. “You, and how much of your bragging was hot air – now don’t be tiresome and say you didn’t brag. Fully a dozen reputable people have told me you’d been bragging how you’d see to it that no one got in the way of your buying up John’s things. Coming on the bus, Joe and I discussed what someone like you might do to prevent someone like Solatia from attending the auction. We wondered how to circumvent you without going to the police. The—”
“Afraid of us, were you?” Hanson interrupted.
“No, Captain, not in the least. But the only police officer I ever remembered seeing in this town was a traffic cop, and I had no desire to try and explain to any traffic cop my fears of what Alden might do to keep Solatia away from the auction. Anyway, Alden,” Harmsworth turned back to him, “your bragging disturbed me to such an extent that I hired a car and drove over here and warned Solatia to watch out for you, just as soon as I arrived.”
That tallied, Asey thought, with what Ellen had told him.
“I didn’t realize that you were on the bus,” Harmsworth continued. “Joe thought he spotted you getting off the New York train, but I guess you were ducking us. If I’d seen you, I certainly should have had a few words with you. Now, I’d like to talk with you privately, Mr. Mayo, if I could.”
“I’m in charge here!” Hanson said.
“I know you are, Captain, and I’m sure you’re right on your toes.” Harmsworth’s irony was so bland that it sailed right over Hanson’s head. “But this is a personal matter I want to discuss – okay, Mr. Mayo?”
“Sure,” Asey said. “First, though, I want to clear up a few things, like why Mr. Alden come here on his bike last night. When I left you at the Inn, Mr. Alden, I thought you was goin’ straight up to bed.”
“You may recall telling me that there was no reason why I shouldn’t return to New York? And I believe you overheard me telling my nephew,” Gardner said smoothly, “that I’d see him before I left? Well, Mr. Mayo, after going to my room and consulting a time-table, I found that I’d have to leave too early to see Al this morning. So I started out to see him last night.”
“I see,” Asey said. “I don’t s’pose you could have phoned him, maybe?”
“He’s very anxious to enter my office,” Gardner returned, “and there were details to be settled which I hardly wished to discuss from the Inn’s only public phone in the lobby – it has no door. So I took a bicycle and started over to see him. When I passed by the house here, I noticed a flashlight moving in an odd fashion, as if two people were struggling to get possession of it, and then I heard someone call out—”
“That was me, see?” Riley’s man told Asey. “I yelled, see? That was when this guy that’d sneaked up on me got me with the rope.”
“I came to investigate,” Gardner said, “and – er – in the language of our friend, the guy got me, too. That’s all there is to my being here. I remained tied up until the police arrived, and Riley set me free.”
“While you’re in this narrative mood, Alden,” there was a glint in Harmsworth’s eyes, “tell me something – why did you pay three thousand for that chest yesterday?”
“I know all about that!” Hanson said promptly. “It reminded him of his grandmother. She used to keep trinkets in it. It was a nice thing for him to do, I thought – hey, what’s the matter, Harmsworth, are you choking to death?”
“You know that gadget that flaps in the back of your throat?” Harmsworth spoke in a strained voice, and avoided looking at Asey. “Mine’s peculiar. Sometimes it flaps the wrong way. Sorry to upset you with it. So that was your grandmother’s chest, Alden! Well, well! A pretty sentiment, a very pretty sentiment indeed, sir! Uh – ready, Mayo?”
“Just one more thing I want to know about.” Asey pointed to the two local men who were sitting by the fire-place and who had never once uttered a word. “What’re Cobb and Patterson doin’ here, Hanson? They weren’t bound up too, were they?”
“They’re members of the ration board,” Hanson explained. “I called ‘em here to see what they knew about the fight between Solatia Spry and Miss Pitkin, but they didn’t even know there’d been a fight. They say as far as they know, Solatia Spry gave Miss Pitkin the same amount of gas she had herself, and neither of ‘em rated new good tyres.”
“I don’t know why Solatia never told me that!” Eunice Pitkin said. “I wouldn’t have cared if I’d known we had the same. I thought she had more—”
“See here, you!” Hanson broke in. “Don’t try edging toward the door, because you can’t go! Neither can you, Harmsworth! I want both of you!”
“Hanson, listen to me!” Asey summed up what Cummings had said about Eunice Pitkin’s arm. “Besides, they both have witnesses! Now, I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I got bound up here last night myself – hey, Jimmy, you heard me speak to you when I rushed away, didn’t you?”
“I never heard nothing,” Jimmy said simply. “I just went to sleep.”
“Well, anyway,” Asey said, “the roper wasn’t the same feller who biffed me earlier, Hanson. You might as well resign yourself to the fact that for the last eighteen hours or so, people have been flockin’ to this house in droves. So be patient an’ reasonable, an’ take it easy. Let Miss Pitkin go if she wants, an’ let Mr. Harmsworth discuss his business with me!”
Five minutes later, out in Solatia Spry’s rose garden, he turned and faced Paul Harmsworth.
“Now,” he said briskly, “what about last night? What did you run into, beside flat tyres an’ Harper’s Magazines?”
“Frankly, I came here after Eunice’s letters. She’s not a bad sort, and I knew she wasn’t guilty, but the minute we heard about Solatia, Eunice started going mad with worry about those letters she’d written. She wanted them back.”
“Uh-huh. It’s an impulse I recognize.” Asey said. “Go on. What happened?”
“I was standing out front, wondering if I had the nerve to go on in and take ‘em,” Harmsworth said, “when someone yelled out your name!”
“That was doc, an’ I’d just been biffed.”
“I didn’t linger to find out any details. I didn’t want to run into you,” Harmsworth said. “I lit out in such a hurry, I lost my bearings entirely. When I finally found my car, the tyres were flat. I hailed a man in a truck and asked him to phone Ellen, and then I thought twice, and pumped them up myself.
“Decided it was wiser not to be found around here, huh?”
Harmsworth nodded. “Later, I decided I was a jelly, and that I would get those letters, as I’d promised. I came back, and almost stumbled over that cop and Gardner Alden, tied up. I did not,” he said, “untie them. Alden dislikes me intensely, and he’d at once have asked why I was there, which would have been a most embarrassing question to answer. And I hesitated to go in and leave them tied up outside, for fear I’d be accused of the tie-up job if anyone came and found me. Then I decided suddenly I was a complete fool, and left.”
“Why?”
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“It occurred to me that Eunice had an alibi, and that those letters didn’t matter a whit. I drove over to the beach,” Harmsworth said, “and sat there and tried to think who could have killed Solatia, and why, and why I couldn’t figure it out. I can always figure out book murders from the first page! I’m good at them!”
“It’s a matter of extraneous odds an’ ends,” Asey said. “You run into more of ‘em this way than you do in books. An’ nobody presents you with pointed descriptions. You got to figger out for yourself if the New York lawyer an’ his fat sister an’ his big-nosed nephew an’ the antique lady an’ the semi-antique man,” Harmsworth chuckled at Asey’s description of him, “an’ the rich Madisons is all lyin’ in whole, or in part, an’ if so, which part.”
“And the auctioneer,” Harmsworth said. “Don’t forget the auctioneer, or the rich Madison girl’s fiance. Well, on my way back to the Inn, much later, I ran into the rich Madison girl and her henchman. They were throwing away those Harper’s. I tried accusatory tactics, somewhat on the order of Hanson’s.” He grinned. “They didn’t work, as you seem to have discovered. I had the hell of a time getting myself loose, and I decided during the process that I never should have sent my helper back to the city. I decided that even the rankest of amateur detectives needs a stooge to untie him – go on and laugh at me, if you want to, for even attempting to detect!”
“Your night as an amateur,” Asey said, “don’t sound a whole lot different from mine. We went to the same places an’ seen the same people, more or less, only you missed a biffin’ Didn’t you find out anythin’ nice an’ useful?” he added. “I got the impression you had some contribution to make to the cause.”
“As I went up the steps to the Inn,” Harmsworth said, “I suddenly found myself thinking with startling clarity – at that point, I was so physically tired I could hardly put one foot before the other, but my mind began to click. I realized I’d been confusing myself with issues like trying to get back Eunice’s letters to Solatia, when they didn’t matter because she had an ironclad alibi. I’d been wasting time asking myself all sorts of impossible questions about the Madisons, and Gardner Alden, and John’s fat sister, and that nephew, when they were all alibied, just as Eunice and I were.”
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