“Blow you to dinner.”
“See that you do. I suppose you know this party’s interesting history? Husband died in June from an overdose of his own amytal. Took twenty grains in whiskey one night. She was knocked out. He was the family chauffeur.”
“Was he?”
“Love match on her part. Her father seems to have been a queer old tyrant, one of the original steel magnates. After her mother died he told her he’d leave her every cent he had if she’d stay and take care of him. So as soon as he died she married this fellow, the only man she ever saw. He started in drinking, but otherwise turned out satisfactory to her.”
“Why didn’t she know other men?”
“They weren’t quite in society, father too much of a rough diamond, and the specialist—he took care of them both—says she’s not particularly bright or attractive. So the papers didn’t play the tragedy up as much as they might if the circumstances had been more interesting. Of course it got lots of publicity in Pittsburgh.”
“Where did the tragedy occur?”
“Right there in the family mansion; house party on. But the specialist says there isn’t a thing the matter with her but too much time on her hands and losing her Clarence, no insanity in the family, she’s never depressed. He’d go to court on it, she hasn’t the makings of schizophrenia. Or anything else that makes you kill total strangers. Like the other party, she’d never even heard of the place—Edgewood. He found it for her from some other doctor.”
“Thanks, that’ll do quite well.”
“Now we come to the junior member of the triumvirate, and he did suggest coming to Edgewood—thought of it himself.”
“Really?”
“I never got hold of his man at all, he’s on a fishing trip; but he has an office with three other G.P.s in a big midtown professional building, and I got hold of the head office nurse yesterday. She knows all about it, every detail.
“This building is handy to a lot of the big hotels, and they get a lot of practice from out-of-town people. Our party called up from the Creighton last week and said he didn’t know a doctor in town, he was on from Washington; he had this hellish neuralgia. Could the receptionist in the building recommend a physician? The receptionist often does. She got him connected with this G.P., who’s a first-rate man and has a big practice. He made an appointment for our party. The party came around. Has definite eye trouble, which our man spotted; it kept him out of the war. Might easily mean neuralgia now and then. Not another thing the matter with him, they gave him the works as usual; seemed perfectly all right except for this attack of neuralgia, which of course you can’t spot for yourself. However, it’s a nasty thing.
“Well, you know what we do when there’s nothing to be done.”
“I know. You send us somewhere else.”
“Nothing like change of air and scene; and Mr. Motley had his place all picked out. He’d heard this Edgewood was just what he needed. So nurse gets Edgewood on the telephone, and Miss Studley talks to the doctor, and it’s all fixed. He could tell her the party wasn’t alcoholic, mental or developing mumps, and it was pretty obvious from his hotel and the way he looked that he could pay the bill. He offered to pay the doctor’s in cash, by the way, seeing he was a stranger, and the offer was accepted with many thanks. But he was at the Creighton, all right; the doctor called him there to tell him that Edgewood could take him.”
“Hamish, you’re a most competent man.”
“No! You really think so? How can I express—”
“The office nurse seems to think that we can wash our friend out as a mental hazard?”
“Absolutely, but of course they haven’t his history, except what he gave them, and there has to be a first time. But the nurse says she never saw anybody less likely to fill that bill. And there was no war experience to create any kind of neurosis, you remember; unless you could get it in Washington. Well, I’ll wait for your report with interest. Anything so far?”
“Not much. Just got to the place. I suppose these doctors won’t stir anything up on the strength of your inquiries?”
“Oh Lord, the last thing they want is a fuss. They’re always afraid of any talk about carelessness in diagnosis. As if even a psychiatrist could be certain—”
“I know. Thanks. Hamish, that dinner will be something to remember.”
Gamadge hung up. He consulted a notebook and called a number.
“Well, well,” said Detective-Lieutenant Durfee, Homicide: “How’s things so far?”
“All right. I wish you’d be kind enough to get me some information, Durfee.”
“I wish you’d give me some; I still don’t know why you were so bound to go up there and look for a maniac.”
“Just interested. It’s such a queer case.”
“Isn’t it? Was it a prowler?”
“So they tell me. Durfee, I want to know something, and I wouldn’t ask a newspaper for anything. I don’t want these people hounded unnecessarily. I thought the Pittsburgh police would keep quiet if you asked them to.”
“The who?”
“The Pittsburgh police.”
Durfee said after a pause, “You mean that woman there at Edgewood.”
“You know how I am, Durfee, I always want to know all about everything. There may be nothing to it. I simply thought you might get me all the details on the quiet—about that accidental death in June.”
“It was in the papers.”
“But I didn’t pay any attention at the time, and the police there would have a lot of details the papers never had—if they’re any good at all.”
“What details?” Durfee added after another pause: “No motive; I looked it up myself when this thing broke. They put her in the clear. She had all the money, and he wasn’t running around with anybody. He was too smart for that.”
“I know. I want details about the people who were in the house at the time, and a full description.”
“What is this?”
“Nothing, probably, and it would be most unfair to make more trouble for the woman just to satisfy my curiosity.”
“They’ll keep quiet if I ask them to—I could explain that I want all the angles. The case is closed, you know.”
“Let it stay that way. It probably will.”
“I never knew anybody poked around the way you do; and I never knew you to do it before without being invited to. What’s the connection between an overdose of amytal, no matter how administered, and somebody going around killing everybody with a log of wood?”
“None whatever, I imagine.”
“And I suppose you want this information right away?”
“The sooner the better. Get it out of the picture.”
Durfee muttered something and hung up. Gamadge hung up also, and with his hands in his pockets sauntered across the lounge and out on the porch. Haynes stood against the rail, smoking.
A tall, slender man in tweeds came along the street; he was hatless, and his blond head was bent. Without looking up, he turned into the Edgewood drive.
“Good Lord,” said Haynes, “that’s Carrington.”
CHAPTER NINE Inside Stuff
CARRINGTON RAISED HIS head, and Gamadge said rather loudly: “I know him.”
Haynes stared.
“Never entered my thick head that it was the Carrington I knew in town.” Gamadge started down the steps. Carrington, taking his cue, raised an arm in salutation. They met and shook hands.
“Mr. Gamadge.” Carrington spoke low.
“Yes. I hope this means that you approve of my idea, Mr. Carrington.”
“Approve? I can’t tell you how relieved I was when Ridley called up before lunch. He says the New York people think you can really do something—if anybody can.”
“Don’t count on it. We’d better make ourselves solid with Haynes.”
“I imagine so.”
They walked side by side up the walk to the steps. Haynes was still staring, but as they arrived he turned his head and scatte
red cigarette ash among the shrubs below the railing.
Carrington said: “This is Mr. Haynes, I think.”
Haynes met his eyes. “Yes, I’m Haynes.” He cleared his throat.
“I saw you at Westbury Town Hall on Friday. I’m very glad, Mr. Haynes, to have this opportunity to express my regret that you and Miss Studley’s other guests should be put to this wretched inconvenience. I wish you’d tell them so.”
Haynes, his blue eyes fixed upon Carrington in embarrassment, muttered something to the effect that it was kind of Carrington to think of other people just now.
“Like to express my sympathy,” he said.
“Thank you. I suppose the authorities have their routine, but really I do think it unnecessary in this case. All I can say is that I’m sorry.”
Haynes cleared his throat again. “I assure you these people—it’s unthinkable.”
“I agree.”
“Well—glad to have seen you.” He turned and walked into the house, closing the door after him. Carrington watched him go. When the door was shut he said wearily: “Poor devil. It is a shame. And the woman—what’s her name?—Turnbull. And the other fellow. Fellow victims in the Carrington tragedy.” He looked about him. “We might sit down on the steps for a minute. Or—” he glanced upwards to right and left.
Gamadge said: “It’s all right—nobody in those rooms. I took the liberty of looking into them as I came down to lunch.”
Carrington smiled faintly: “Part of the system?”
“Part of the system.”
They sat down on an upper step, and Carrington got out his pipe. While he filled and lighted it, Gamadge considered him.
The terrible experience which he had undergone must have left its mark on him, but Gamadge wondered whether he was much changed by it outwardly; he was so obviously a man of great emotional reserve, the type of man who makes a virtue of facing the world with self-possession. He might not even be a man of deep feeling; but he was sensitive. His control was probably the result of long years of training.
His eyes, deep-set and far apart, were slightly reddened, perhaps by the strain of these last bad nights; his nostrils looked pinched, his mouth was pressed into a close line, a deep groove scored it on either side from nose to chin. A sensitive face, forced into the semblance of a mask by an effort of will.
Gamadge wondered whether profit of any kind, financial or other, could induce or drive a man of Carrington’s type to murder, much less parricide. He thought that such a man would not even be tempted to violence by considerations of gain. And in this case the loss of money had occurred years before; Carrington had not had more to lose than a country house, its contents and its surrounding acres; there was no evidence that he had been in danger of losing even them. Unthinkable that he would have committed such a crime for them, no matter what his sentimental feeling for the place. Unthinkable, even if by their loss he had been threatened with beggary; and he had never been threatened with beggary.
Carrington, his pipe going, now considered Gamadge in his turn. He took the pipe out of his mouth, smiled, and said: “Ridley made it plain that you’re a remarkable person, Mr. Gamadge. But I confess I can’t quite see why—or how—a man of your kind ever took up this sort of work. Not that it isn’t in the highest degree useful work; and I ought to have heard of you before. But my tastes are narrow and my experience limited.”
“Much better not to spread yourself out as thin as some of the rest of us do. As for my interest in criminology—my applied interest in it—I sometimes feel inclined to ask people who express surprise at it how I could have avoided it.”
“You mean your own profession ran along parallel lines?”
“Very much so. The alleged crime,” said Gamadge, smiling, “the clues, the proof (if I’m lucky), and the pursuit and punishment of the criminal.”
“You stick to the good old formula of crime and punishment?”
“Oh, yes; I stick to that. And to me, you know, there’s something almost murderous in the forgery of a book or a letter. Something’s murdered if the thing comes off; reality, confidence, and—er—integrity.”
“I agree with you that it’s a shocking thing. The chase must be fascinating.”
“Yes. There’s so much more in a book or an autograph letter than meets the eye.”
“I’ve followed some of the literature on that subject. Age of paper and ink, fonts of type; even the ingredients of the glue in the binding. Perfectly fascinating.” He smoked thoughtfully. “And there’d be a fourth dimension, I suppose, too? The feeling that something’s wrong, very wrong? Not that you’d go by that, of course; but isn’t it often there?”
“Internal evidence, rather,” said Gamadge. “And that’s often the best. Poor Chatterton. But I never could get up much sympathy with that sad young man; I have a blind spot when it comes to the fun of fooling people.”
“So have I. Have you written anything?”
“Half a dozen little things.”
“I never put my stuff into a book—too ephemeral. I still contribute to one or two periodicals, but not regularly. We’re a family of dilettantes. My sister could have played professionally, but my father didn’t like the idea. Just as well, perhaps; there are too many second-rate professional pianists. My great anxiety at present—” Carrington drew on his pipe for a few moments, then continued slowly—“is for her. I sometimes think she’ll never recover from the shock of this tragedy. She can’t help blaming herself.”
“But as I understand it—”
“Nobody, no outsider, can quite understand Frazer’s Mills—as it was. It won’t be the same now, it has lost its innocence. We were utter fools, of course, to be so careless; we’re not after all so far from the wicked world. But who could foresee a thing like that? I know it’s a stupid thing to say to a professional—”
“Which I’m not.”
“To an expert, then; but I do feel most strongly that this criminal lunatic came from the outside, and went back to his own place.”
“If I’m to be at all sure of that I’ll need inside help, Mr. Carrington. All I’ve had so far is ill-founded opinion.”
“I don’t know whether I can give you more. But you ought to see the whole picture; you ought to go over the whole ground. My sister asked me to say that we’d like to have you come and take some supper with us tonight.”
“I couldn’t possibly intrude on her and on you—”
Carrington’s drawn and anxious face softened again as he faintly smiled. “You don’t know what a favor you’ll be doing us. If you can relieve this strain at all—but I mustn’t ask miracles. Simply to feel that somebody with intelligence is doing something—That’s what my sister needs. Rose Jenner is young; resilient. She’s quite herself again. Poor child, I used to be irritated by her youthful exuberance. Age can stand it better, in fact gets something from it; but the intolerant forties—” he shook his head. “A selfish age.”
“Don’t tell me, I’m trying to get used to the forties myself.”
“Then you can understand. Rose is a most intelligent, delightful child, and she was devoted, completely devoted to her guardian. It’s grotesque even to question her devotion, or her intelligence either. The trouble is that when people are younger than one’s desiccated self, and have a different kind of intelligence, one underrates them. Well, Mr. Gamadge: our old cook and her husband are standing by us, though even they won’t stay in poor Frazer’s Mills after dusk. You’ll get a good cold supper, and you won’t find us too dreary. My sister has excellent discipline, and she is naturally a serene creature. If you’d walk up or drive up at half past seven we’ll have cocktails at our leisure, and I’ll show you everything before Lydia meets you. She won’t go near the parlor yet; you know my father was in what we still call the parlor bedroom?”
“I gathered that.”
Carrington rose. “A friendly place,” he said, again looking along the lines of trees on the street. “But it’s gone into its shell. At n
ight—ghastly. By half past seven you won’t see an open doorway or a soul on the walks. Perhaps you’d better drive. I don’t know. They say they’ve searched the woods, but I’d back a boy scout to hide up and not be found. Caves, rocks”—he glanced to the left—“trees. Why not hide in a tree? One reads of such cases—madmen living for weeks and months in the woods, living on God knows what. Perhaps you’d better drive.”
“I will.”
“You don’t laugh, I’m glad to see.”
“No, I don’t laugh.”
“As for a madman in the cottages or farms—that’s out of the question. I know these people, I know them all. As you see, the landowners kept their tenantry”—he smiled—“under their eye. People think that’s very odd—that the cottages should have been put in full view of the big houses; but people don’t get the idea, which is quite sensible—the village at the gates of the Manor. And the cottages are very nice. You can’t see much of them, never could, behind their trees. I only wish the Tavern were fulfilling its ancient functions, but local option was too much for us, and there’d be no business nowadays. Not enough custom to keep a bar going. Well, my sister and I will never desert, and Emeline Wakefield won’t. After that… Fact is, the little place is dying. After our day it will turn into something else—artists’ colony or weekend resort for New York people.”
“If I had your place I think I could live and die in it.”
“Not a bad place to die. The cemetery’s along the Green Tree road, off in a clearing; you must see it. A most lovely spot. Full of Wakefields and Chapleys, Rigbys and Compsons and Carringtons. Not an ugly tombstone or monument, and a deferential fringe of cottage worthies. Always room enough in our cemetery, just a matter of clearing away more woodland. My older sister’s there. It’s through her that Rose Jenner came into the family.”
“So I understand.”
“Did you ever hear of a feminine chess prodigy before?”
“I never did.”
“You ought to have a game with Rose; but her early experience with chess has taken it out of the amusement class for her. Did you know that her father made a living out of her for some time—between her eleventh and fifteenth year?”
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