The Ring of Truth

by George Harmon Coxe

  “I’ve been asking a lot of questions today,” he said. “I still think you’re right about Ralph.”

  “I am? You mean about not killing himself?”

  Standish nodded.

  “Then he didn’t kill Jess Flemming either.”

  “Right.”

  “But the police—”

  “I know what they think.”

  “And you think they’re wrong? Why? Do you know something they don’t?”

  Standish sorted out the questions and tried to remember what he had said. It wasn’t easy. There had been no specific routine in his interviews with Marion Choate and Evelyn and Donald Tremaine. He had been fishing for information and his questions and statements were impromptu. He recalled that he had mentioned the chloral hydrate to Mary. He was not sure about the others but he did not think Sheila knew the basis for his original suspicion. He decided to find out.

  “Do you know what chloral hydrate is?”

  “I think so. Some kind of drug, isn’t it? If you put it in someone’s drink it knocks you out pretty quick?”

  “That’s about right. It used to be standard equipment in some off-limits bars and nightclubs. It made an easy way for a hooker or a waiter or someone to roll a visiting fireman before they tossed him out on the street.”

  “Yes.” She was nodding her agreement and her small painted mouth fashioned a smile. “I’ve worked in places where they used something like that once in a while.” She paused to let the statement sink in, the smile still there, before she added: “But not just that way.”

  “Oh?”

  “These weren’t the kind of traps you’re talking about. They were respectable enough. But sometimes some prominent citizen or local bigshot would come in. He might even be a regular out on the town. He’d keep putting away drinks and then later he might get loud and boisterous and objectionable. The management wouldn’t want to throw him out so the bartender would slip a little something in his drink and before you knew it he’d be quiet enough. Probably asleep at his table and it was easy to get him out and put him in a taxi and see that he got home. Would that be what your chloral hydrate does? Why? What does that have to do with Ralph?”

  Standish took some of his drink and leaned forward, his manner confidential. He told her about the “powder paper” he had found and just how he had happened to see it. He said that the few grains that had remained stuck to the paper had been analyzed by the city chemist and that the toxicologist who made further tests was ready to state that Jess Flemming had ingested some chloral hydrate not too long before he died.

  He had her full attention by the time he finished. The green eyes were wide open and the mouth slack, the drink in front of her forgotten. It took her a few seconds to realize he had finished and then she said:

  “And you told the police this? What did they say?”

  “Oh, they had some answers. I’m not sure Lieutenant Ballard believes them but until he gets some proof that he’s wrong he has to stick with them. He says that Estey could have called on Flemming, offered to call off the feud, and conned him into taking a drink that he had fixed.”

  She shook her head. “Never.”

  “He even suggested,” Standish said, “that someone could have come in earlier—maybe you—and had a drink or two with Flemming. Somewhere along the line he was drugged and set up so Ralph could come in a little later and use the gun.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Her mouth dipped at the corners and her voice was contemptuous. “That lieutenant must be out of his mind.” She paused again, still angry with the insinuation. When Standish made no immediate reply she said: “How do you think Flemming got the chloral hydrate?”

  “Oh, I think he took it in a drink all right. I think that fight out on the sidewalk Friday night was the lucky break that made it easier. The police were bound to find out about it. With Flemming shot to death they have to go looking for Estey. When they find him an apparent suicide the case is wrapped up.”

  “But who? Why?”

  “I don’t know who, but I’ve got an idea why.”

  Standish went on quickly then, speaking frankly and easily as he unburdened himself of the things that had been piling up in his mind. He spoke again of the accident and the ramifications of vehicular homicide long used by gangsters as a method of murder. He said that Flemming’s previous record and background in violence suggested that he would be familiar with such methods and, if the price was right and the planning sound, he was the type who could do the job.

  “Oh, he could,” she said. “He could.”

  Standish went on as though he had not heard. He said that Flemming had become more affluent since the accident. He mentioned the trip to the West Coast and Las Vegas, the big car which was a more recent purchase.

  “Suppose Flemming was running out of cash and realized he had a perfect way to get more, maybe indefinitely?” He did not wait for a reply but repeated the hypothesis he had given Donald Tremaine earlier, sketching the ingredients needed to work out a practical murder-suicide case. “Everyone benefited by Robert Tremaine’s death,” he said, and outlined the financial benefits that had accrued to the Choates and to Evelyn and Donald Tremaine.

  She was looking right at him now, leaning closer, so that he could see only the intriguing depth of her green eyes.

  “Yes,” she breathed. “They all gained something, didn’t they? But which one hired Flemming? I mean, if you’re right how can you—”

  Standish interrupted, knowing what she was about to say. “I don’t know.” He leaned back to finish his drink. “I want to talk to Warren Choate. I couldn’t find him tonight. Maybe in the morning I can find out if someone sold, say, five or ten thousand dollars’ worth of stock about the time of the accident.”

  “You mean, to get the cash to pay Flemming?”

  Standish nodded. “I also know that Donald Tremaine may not be quite the proper, innocent-looking bachelor he seems.” He passed along the information he had received from Marion Choate and Evelyn Tremaine that afternoon and shook his head. “I’m not so sure they’re right about Donald,” he said. “I know that he has been entertaining some woman on the average of one night a week for some time now. No one knows who she is—yet. But I’m pretty sure I can find out before long. He used to be an eighty-five-hundred-a-year bookkeeper. Now he’s a partner in a good business with maybe a couple of hundred thousand more to back him up.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I see what you mean.” And then, out of nowhere, she added: “You don’t give up easily, do you, Doctor?”

  Standish found the question as surprising as it was direct. He had not thought of himself that way and he did not know how to answer. As he considered this she posed another question.

  “Are you doing all this just because you were a friend of Ralph’s?”

  “Maybe,” he said, and the more he thought about it, the less sure he was of himself. He couldn’t say that as a doctor and a medical examiner he could not accept the unexplained presence of chloral hydrate in a man who had been shot in the chest. He could not say that to him it was important that the proper answers be listed in any report he made. “The lieutenant and I talked to Ralph’s ex-wife last night,” he said. “I guess you know he had a five-year-old son.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Ralph was paying twenty-five a week for the boy’s support. There was also a ten-thousand-dollar insurance policy on his life. It had a suicide clause in it. If the verdict stands as suicide there will be no payment for the boy’s education. Maybe it’s just that—well, if Ralph did not commit suicide I’d like to have a hand in getting at the truth.”

  As he finished, his mind slid off on a tangent and he thought again about the gold-and-enamel perfume atomizer, the spray of which he could still smell. He remembered the black hair that was now in his notebook. He knew what he was going to do with it. With luck he could find another for comparison purposes. He did not speak of this now because he suddenly realized that he had been
using this girl as a sounding board without regard for her personal feelings or welfare.

  “I’m sorry, Sheila,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bend your ear this way.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I just hope you can finally prove the truth about Ralph.”

  “And what are your plans?”

  She took a deep breath and looked down at the table. “I don’t know. This morning I thought I’d just quit and get away from here. I’ve been breaking Madge in”—she tipped her head backward toward the checkroom—“and she’d like the job. But then—I don’t know. This is the best spot—for money, I mean—I’ve had in a long time. Maybe I’ll just go away for a week or two if it’s all right with Mr. Hennessey.”

  Standish nodded. He said it might be a good idea. For another second or two he eyed her with approval, impressed not only by her attractiveness but by her courage and determination. Then, all at once, he was embarrassed because he knew he had no right to look at her like that. He signaled the waiter and paid the check. He was still a little embarrassed when she helped him on with his coat and he said good-night.

  It had been cloudy early in the evening, and by ignoring the threat of rain Paul Standish found himself caught without a raincoat as he stepped out on a sidewalk that was slick and black and wet. The doorman, hovering in the shadows, snapped open his oversized umbrella. He offered to walk Standish across the street to the parking lot but Standish said it wasn’t raining that hard and, making sure that no car was coming, he loped over to the parking lot and piled into his car. He found the seat wet from an open window and rolled it up. He dug his keys out of his pocket, got the motor going, and activated the windshield wiper. He lit a cigarette from the dashboard lighter and when he still could not locate the attendant he jockeyed his way out of the parking space and onto the pavement.

  He drove slowly over the rain-slick streets, his weariness too persistent now to ignore. The effects of this served also to accent a growing feeling of discouragement over his lack of progress. He was ready to admit that he had a better insight into the characters and personalities of the people most involved, but in terms of practical evidence that there had been some collusion in a murder plan, he had nothing conclusive. He also understood that he had gone about as far as he could without overstepping his authority, which was limited at best. He could, when he got around to it the following day, pass along the information to Ballard. He could outline his thoughts and ideas to the State’s Attorney. There the matter would have to stay unless he could convince someone that the investigation should be continued and this possibility, considered realistically, seemed unlikely.

  He was still brooding about this lack of progress as he turned into the alley behind his apartment. Here, on one side, was a long row of wooden garages which were little more than sheds with individual doors. Low-watt bulbs at either end glowed weakly under hooded reflectors so that the resulting light would not escape upward to disturb the tenants of the adjacent apartment buildings.

  Standish had to get out to open the doors before he could drive in, and when he had taken the ignition key and closed them he walked hurriedly back to the street. He turned right here, coat collar still up and shoulders hunched against the light but steady drizzle. He turned right again at the comer, hugging the walls of the building for shelter. His own place was halfway down the block, and he walked hurriedly, bag in hand, as the shadows thickened. There were few windows lighted here at this hour and no sound except, somewhere up ahead, the low, pulsing throb of an idling motor.

  Standish never knew what made him glance up, what made him stop so unaccountably just before he reached the glass doors of the apartment house. He was hurrying. His chin was tucked down against the rain. The sound of the motor meant nothing. Yet something, some inner compulsion, made him look up, and having done so he stopped short, not consciously but in response to an automatic and intuitive reflex he could not control.

  Opposite the entrance and diagonally twenty feet away, in a no-parking zone marked by a yellow curb, stood this small sedan with the idling motor, the right-hand window rolled down and framing darkly a shadowed figure. Standish could not see it clearly. He was aware of a turned-up collar, a snap-brimmed felt hat hiding a half-seen face, the combined impression vague, because what caught his eye was the metallic glint at the end of an outthrust hand.

  All this took but a fraction of a second, and it may have been the sudden stop that saved him. The expected step never came and as he stiffened the gun exploded. He saw the muzzle flash, and felt the lash of chips from the brick wall beside him. Then he was down, half diving, not toward the angle of the building but seeking the protection of another car parked at the curb, trying to pull his head behind his doctor’s bag while the gun roared twice again in quick succession.

  Later it came to him that he had moved in the right direction. By getting farther behind the gun he reduced the angle of fire but at no time did he look up. Taut-muscled and immobile, he shrank there until he heard the motor accelerate and the whine of gears. He lifted his head cautiously as the sedan angled out from the curb with lights out and license plate obscured. He did not even know what kind of a car it was. Not new, he decided later, but fairly new. And of a style that had been made almost universal by automobile manufacturers, who seemed intent on making most of the inexpensive models look alike.

  The moment he got to his feet he kept moving. He did not want to be caught standing there while some curious neighbor opened a window to find some answer for the shots. Three long strides took him past the wet pavement of the no-parking area. At the entrance he ducked quickly inside. He met no one in the elevator but he was conscious now of the tremor in his legs as reaction set in. He had a little trouble with his door key, but once he was inside the tension began to ease and his breathing became more normal.

  He put aside his bag and his topcoat and saw that his trousers were wetly stained but not tom. The palms of his hands were slick and grimy and when he had shucked his jacket he went into the bathroom to wash them.

  He was not sure when the trembling stopped. He soaked and washed his hands. He dried them automatically and as he caught his reflection in the mirror he found an odd grin working on his eyes. This so amazed him that he wondered why. When the answer finally came to him he accepted it with satisfaction.

  What up to now had been little more than a personal hunch had suddenly taken on new significance. He had no intention of bothering Lieutenant Ballard tonight, but tomorrow when he gave him the facts—there should be a bullet scar or two to substantiate his story—there was bound to be some change in the official position. In addition, and this seemed the most important of all, someone apparently was getting pretty badly scared.

  16

  PAUL STANDISH was up early again on Thursday morning and as he drove to his office in the morgue he wondered when he would be able to resume his normal routine. It was too early for his secretary to put in an appearance but he knew that Clem Jones, the city chemist, usually arrived before anyone else. He left the outer door open and pulled up a chair so he could watch the hall and when, ten minutes later, Jones came in from the street, he stood up and beckoned.

  “Hi, Doc,” the chemist said. “Early, aren’t you? You want to see me?”

  He was a slender man of indeterminate age, with sharp features, inquisitive eyes, and thinning dark hair. He was a dedicated, underpaid public servant but he liked his work and seldom complained except when he wanted some new equipment not in the budget. Now, moving to the nearest desk, he watched while Standish opened his notebook to disclose the strand of hair he had taken from Donald Tremaine’s divan.

  “You can tell quite a lot about hair, can’t you, Clem?”

  “Yep,” Jones said, his interest beginning to show as he bent to look at the specimen.

  “Whether it’s human or animal?”

  “Yep. Unless you think it might have come from certain breeds of monkeys.”

  “Whether it’s a man’s or
a woman’s?”

  “Usually. Also whether it’s been bleached or dyed or had a recent permanent. What part of the body, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Age group?”

  “Relatively speaking.”

  “Could you tell whether this came from a particular person?”

  “Nope. This one”—he indicated the specimen—“probably came from a woman’s head unless maybe from one of those Beatle-type characters. Find me another one and I can tell you that maybe it did not come from the same head. If it shapes up as the same it could still come from some other woman.”

  “Okay. Do the best you can. I’ll send you another specimen down later and you can make a comparison for me.” When Jones left, Standish telephoned Lou Cheney at his home. The answering voice sounded sleepy and mildly complaining about the early hour. Standish ignored the complaint and came to the point.

  “Did you learn anything at Tremaine’s last night?”

  “A little something. He had a caller.”

  “When?”

  “Not long after you left.”

  “Your man was there then? I didn’t see him.”

  “If you had he wouldn’t be working for me. . . . It was our brunette with the dark glasses. Off schedule, I guess, because according to the landlord she usually came on Sunday or Monday. Also this time she didn’t stay but a half hour.”

  “Did you follow her?”

  “We did. Do you want to guess where she went?” Standish remembered the street address of Evelyn Tremaine’s house and gave it.

  “Right the first time,” Cheney said.

  Somehow the knowledge did not surprise Standish and he spoke of the other thing he had in mind.

  “You’ve got keys that will open almost any door, haven’t you?”

  “We manage as a rule.”

  “I’d like to get into Evelyn Tremaine’s house for about two minutes.”

  “What do you want there?”

  “A hair.”