The Case of the Crumpled Knave

by Anthony Boucher

  “How did he take your story?”

  “He—he did seem confused by it. And then very sorry. But he was so nice. I thought then that I understood him, poor dear helpless old man that he is. But do you really think—”

  “Just what are you driving at, Miss Sallice?”

  “Why, that he must have thought that I was—that I’d taken Alicia’s place with Uncle Humphrey. Bodily, I mean. He loved her so much; he would have been frightfully jealous. He and Uncle Humphrey hated each other anyway. That could have been enough to—” She halted. A direct accusation of murder was apparently more than she could bring herself to utter.

  Fergus pursued his advantage. “Then you can see how very important it is for us to know everything we can about him. So tell us—why did he say, ‘I am Hector Prynne’?”

  Camilla laughed nervously. “But that’s so silly. It can’t have anything to do with—with anything.”

  “Tell us anyway,” Rand urged, still somewhat puzzled by this whole Willowe situation. If the man had planned to incriminate Vinton for some strange reason, why should he flee now when his planted suspect was safely under arrest?

  “I think it was just that he wanted to show his confidence in me—give secret for secret. You understand, don’t you? So since he knew who I really was, he went on and told me who he was. But what difference can that possibly make?”

  Fergus was rowing so eagerly that he just missed ramming a tiny island. “Go on.”

  “Well, you see, Uncle Humphrey wasn’t very generous to Arthur about money. Not that there was any reason why he should be—Uncle Arthur didn’t feel any resentment about that. But he used to want money to give to Mother occasionally—he didn’t know that it was to send to me, but he trusted her in anything. He was too old to get a job, he’d failed in business, and he didn’t know how to get money. So he tried writing.”

  “I’ve known guys who did that,” Fergus observed. “Six months, and they were generally glad to get a job in a service station.”

  “He tried everything, writing away secretly in his room. He couldn’t sell anything to what he called ‘the slicks,’ so he tried the pulp magazines. He wrote detective stories and horror stories and sport stories—and I don’t think he’d ever seen a football game or a prize fight in his life—and they all came back promptly. Then he finally clicked in the off-color magazines—you know, things like Naughty Nights and Risky Revels. He went on and did some sexy novels for rental libraries. I remember I read one once; it was really shocking.”

  “He must have had great faith in his imagination,” Rand grunted.

  “He’s sold quite a few things, and they’ve done well; but he’s never dared tell anyone. He did want to tell Uncle Humphrey just to prove that he could do something; but he was afraid that that sort of thing might seem worse than not being able to do anything at all. So that was his secret.”

  “And he wrote under the name of Hector Prynne?”

  “Yes. He sort of twisted that out of The Scarlet Letter; I think the idea amused him.”

  “Did Mr. Garnett ever learn about this?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “You know what Uncle Humphrey was like. If he ever had found out, he’d have been sure to taunt the poor old man about it. The chance would have been too good to waste.”

  “Did anyone else know?”

  “Uncle Arthur said I was the first person he’d ever told; but Richard Vinton had guessed it. He found a page that had blown off the balcony; it had the Hector Prynne name on it, and he recognized it.”

  “When was this?”

  “The day before yesterday, I think.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “He used to get his Hector Prynne mail at a post-office box. There wasn’t any way anyone could know.”

  “Then presumably nobody knew about it when that telegram was sent. … But to go back a bit—if you didn’t mean Garnett’s murder, what did you mean when you said, ‘Then he did do it!’?”

  Camilla paused. “I don’t know now if this was really true or not. It might have been just a trick. … You see, he seemed so glad to know who I was. It was like having a part of Alicia that wasn’t Uncle Humphrey’s at all. He’d always felt he could never quite be close to Kay, because she was a Garnett; but I was different. It made him very happy, and he said he’d changed his mind.”

  Rand’s head was throbbing again. The sun on the water was too bright; it was hard for him to follow this confused unfolding of secrets within secrets. “Changed his mind about what?”

  “About—” She hesitated.

  “About suicide, you mean?” Fergus prompted her.

  “How on earth did you know?” This time she said it quite uncued.

  “I read part of his note on the blotting paper, and besides I saw the ash tray. Old gag, the blotting paper. The Colonel here thought it was a confession of Garnett’s murder; I thought it was his morbid remorse for having accidentally killed your mother. That ties in with his fear of Garnett. He was going to escape remorse and fear at once, and he had the note all ready. Right?”

  “Yes. …”

  “How was he going to do it?”

  “He’d slipped some poison out of the laboratory—I don’t know what, but he said it was quick and didn’t hurt much. Then, when he felt—I can’t make it clear, it was all so strange—when he felt that I almost was Alicia and forgave him in her name, he tore up the note and put it in an ash tray and shook out the poison on it—it was a powder—and set a match to the whole thing. It made a smoke almost like incense …”

  It was twisted, Rand thought, and yet somehow sacred. He could see the poor old man, shaken with his tragic devotion to his dead sister, receiving what was truly a sacrament of absolution from her child. In his blunt way, he could understand it. To the three men who had loved her, Alicia Willowe had meant something beyond life.

  These thoughts were going too deep. Rand assumed as stiff a military posture as the rowboat would allow, delivered a too-casual “harrumph,” and groped for a cigar.

  “Fine,” Fergus was saying. “It all works out.” He had been maneuvering the boat to the dock. Now with a long pull he sent it straight at the waiting attendant.

  “One more item for the expense account,” he said as he paid off. “Now come on.”

  “Please,” Camilla faltered, “could I have a drink?”

  Fergus bestowed a broad grin upon her. “There, Colonel, is what I term a proper wench. She doesn’t look at you wistfully, she doesn’t make obscure hints, she just up and says, ‘Please, could I have a drink?’” He tucked her arm under his. “Of course you could, my sweet, and indeed you shall. My father would do nip-ups in his grave if he thought I failed you. Come on.”

  Across from the park, wedged between a five-and-ten and a drugstore, stood a small café, whose windows proclaimed MIXED DRINKS and REAL MEXICAN FOOD. The cashier tossed a friendly nod at Fergus; he was evidently not unknown there.

  “As a private investigator,” Fergus announced as they settled into a booth, “I’m unorthodox as hell. Mr. Latimer wouldn’t approve of me one little bit. I rarely drink on a case at all, and never before lunch. But this seems as good a time as any to start changing habits. What’s yours, Miss Sallice?”

  “Whiskey.”

  “Irish?” Fergus asked hopefully.

  “Rye.”

  “Damn. I’ve been trying for years to find somebody who drinks Irish whiskey. Honor of the race. But I don’t even like the stuff myself. Colonel?”

  “Scotch and soda.”

  “Why did I ask? Now if we can find—” He looked around the place hopelessly. Night life here, Rand decided, must be something spectacular; nothing else could give it such a dank, deserted look in the morning. Bars have hangovers too; and this one looked as though it might go out any minute and drink up the lake opposite.

  Conversation lapsed until the two ryes and the Scotch highball appeared. Then Fergus lifted his gla
ss and said, “Here’s …! You can add whatever you please to that.”

  “To your success,” said the Sallice. She sipped the straight whiskey slowly. “I wish I knew,” she said, “just what is happening.”

  “So do I,” Fergus grunted.

  “I mean … Uncle Humphrey was very close to me. They all are, in a way. And a thing like this … Damn!” She set down the glass abruptly. “I thought that would help. It does generally. But it isn’t any use.” Tears were trembling in her dark eyes.

  “I’ve a staunch, manly shoulder,” Fergus suggested diffidently.

  Rand looked at them for a moment and then rose. “Excuse me,” he mumbled, and walked off. That was one advantage of bars. You could always excuse yourself and nobody thought anything of it. He had become curiously fond of the weary loveliness of Camilla Sallice in the past half-hour; but now, he felt, a young comforter would be more satisfying.

  He stayed away as long as his excuse could plausibly justify, and at last returned to the booth. Comfort was comfort, but it was now high time that action be resumed.

  Camilla was powdering her nose. Her face bore that strange expression of teary contentment known only to women who have just had a good cry. “My turn, Colonel,” she said with a half-smile, and vanished.

  Smiling, Rand stood and regarded Fergus for a moment. Then wordlessly he drew forth his pocket handkerchief and handed it over. Automatically the young man made a dab toward his lips, halted, then walked deliberately over to the bar mirror.

  “Colonel,” he pronounced on his return, “you are a cockeyed, insinuating, and malicious liar. There’s not a trace of make-up on me.”

  “No. But you were quite ready to believe there might be. That’s all I wanted to know.”

  Fergus shrugged impenitently. “I know. Now I get a sermon on Attention to Duty and Sublimation of the Impulses of the Flesh, with maybe five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys to round it off. But you’re not a celibate confessor, Colonel. Think of your own youth. Remember,” his voice grew warm with burlesque melodrama, “remember when that exotic and seductive International Spy, Valda Varazzi, approached you in her quest for the Papers. Picture her dropping her leopard-skin coat and slinking up to you in that décolleté evening gown. She draws near to you. She Teclines on your shoulder. Her lips turn up to yours. And what do you do? I ask you, sir, as a gentleman of honor, what do you do?”

  The Colonel finished his neglected highball. “Young man,” he said judiciously, “even under the circumstances which you describe, I should never prove guilty of betraying my country’s trust. No matter how décolleté the gown nor how exotic the spy. I should never yield up the Papers. But,” he added, “I should certainly enjoy myself while the going was good.”

  Fergus grinned. “Thanks. You’re a good guy, Colonel. But I wish I hadn’t brought up the Valda Varazzi theme. I like this gal. I like her a hell of a lot. And I wish I’d met her some other way, so that I wouldn’t have to be thinking every minute, ‘This is all very well, but what does she want to get out of me?’”

  “She may feel the same way,” Rand suggested.

  “That helps a lot. Well, it’s all just one more reason to get this over with promptly. ‘If it were done when ’tis done—’”

  “But can it be done quickly?”

  “Of course it can. It’s practically done now, since that rowboat session cleared up the loose ends. Don’t you see—”

  “Ready, Fergus.” Camilla looked freshened and almost gay. (It had been ‘Mr. O’Breen’ ten minutes ago, the Colonel reflected.)

  “Ready, my sweeting.”

  “Where are we going now?” Rand asked.

  “Back to the house. Jackson ought to be there by now.”

  Camilla grew suddenly pale again. “You mean the detective lieutenant? Why should he be there?”

  “Sorry. Minor slip. Forget I said it.” He paused to pay the check at the cashier’s desk, then turned back to them again. “No—on second thought you’d better know. It might lessen the shock.

  “You see, Colonel, when I told you that Willowe was ‘gone,’ I was just using a popular euphemism. Arthur Willowe has been murdered.”

  XVIII

  Maurice Warriner Runs

  For once Fergus O’Breen’s companions outdid him in curiosity. Both Rand and Camilla shot question after question at him; but he brushed aside their desire for information and gestured them into the car.

  “You’ll know all about it soon enough, children.” (Rand bristled at the epithet.) “The less you know, the less apt the Lieutenant is to find out what I’ve been doing on my own.”

  He was silent all the way out Wilshire. Camilla was still dazed from the shock of Willowe’s death. She trembled a little, and Rand took her hand. Her subtle scent was strong and her body warm, at once firm and yielding, in the confinement of the roadster. Rand was glad he was old; that enabled him to feel this simple paternal tenderness. But he couldn’t help wondering how her tantalizing proximity affected the young Irishman.

  Fergus spoke once as they turned on to Vermont. “There’s one possible flaw.” He seemed to be thinking aloud. “Warriner said something about the French pack having had other names for its court cards before this current official series. And I was so excited about Hector that I forgot to ask him more questions. If I’m wrong there and that card does mean something else … God knows what an intricate mind like that might conceive … I suppose I might get it out of one of Garnett’s books; but still I wish Warriner would drop around again.”

  It was then that Rand recalled his talk with the curator during his stroll on the past evening. So much had happened since then that the interview had not recurred to his mind. “Warriner has his own theory about the murder,” he said.

  “So? He didn’t say anything to me. When did you see him?”

  Rand explained and told of their talk. “He’s betting on Will Harding for your murderer,” he concluded.

  “Is he indeed?” And Fergus said nothing more for many blocks.

  They were just turning off Los Feliz Boulevard when they saw him. Fergus drew the car swiftly to the curb. “Now’s our chance. I’ll check this one point, just to make dead sure, and then …” He leaped out of the car and started toward the retreating figure of the old curator.

  Rand stared at the man’s back. Something went click! in the recesses of his mind, and without even a premonitory “harrumph” he found himself shouting “Dalrymple!”

  Fergus had almost caught up with Warriner when suddenly the old man halted abruptly. He turned and glared at the young detective as though he were the Angel with the Fiery Sword. Then he began to run.

  Rand could hear Fergus’ laugh—a mixture of amusement and wonder. Then he saw the young man set out after the old with long, easy strides. “Come on,” the Colonel said sharply to the girl at his side. He opened the car door for her. She followed, puzzled.

  Warriner was displaying an ability striking fox his age. His shoulders were straight now, and he looked thinner than ever. He was running at a good pace, and Fergus seemed worried. It just wasn’t right that a young man in his condition couldn’t keep up with a doddering, snuff-taking antiquarian.

  Without a word, the scene had suddenly become something earnest and deadly. It involved far more than the early names of the court cards in the French deck. Rand automatically felt for his service revolver, and deeply regretted its absence. To the occasional passer-by who turned a bemused head, there was only something grotesque about these two thin figures chasing each other down the street; hut Rand felt that there was a sinister current running deep beneath this almost Keystone chase.

  He and the Sallice girl were following as fast as they could; but in spite of Rand’s well-preserved vigor, his running days were over, and even this fast-paced walk made his head throb anew. The two men turned a corner, and their followers lost them for a moment.

  Camilla rounded the corner first. She turned back and stared at Rand. “They—they’re gon
e.”

  Rand glanced about him quickly. Halfway up the block was an undeveloped lot, covered with closegrowing trees. “There,” he said. “Come on. He never goes armed. You needn’t worry. There’s no danger.”

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly, but followed without a question.

  There was the sound of a furious scuffle among the trees—a thrashing of bodies and a dry crushing of leaves. Then the sounds ceased for a moment, and there came a sharp groan of pain. Camilla cried out.

  “Come on,” Rand said again gruffly. He wanted to think of words, but commands were more in his line. This time Camilla needed no urging. She dashed toward the clump of trees. Rand prayed that he was right about the man’s habits. They never change.

  Warriner lay on the ground at the foot of a tall eucalyptus. He wasn’t moving. Fergus sat beside him, doing his best to look chipper while lines of anguish twisted his white face.

  “The damned bastard fouled me,” he muttered. “Sorry for the expression, Camilla—that must be what they mean by foul language. Sorry for the pun too—that’s even worse. But I don’t much like this sort of fighting.”

  Warriner stirred. At that the Colonel, with military efficiency, leaned over him and proceeded to shake him into some sort of consciousness. The old man’s body was lithe and hard—not at all the dry mass of skin and bones you might have expected from his appearance; it was small wonder, from the feel of him, that he had downed even that ex-basketball star, Fergus O’Breen.

  As the Colonel rose from his ministrations, his eyes caught the glitter of enamel on the ground. On an impulse he bent down again, slipped the small box into his pocket, and straightened up.

  Fergus was glaring down at the curator. “What the hell did you get so excited about? Think I was going to arrest you for the murder? In the first place, I can’t arrest anybody. In the second, you never even gave me a chance to speak. All I wanted from you was some dope on the old French pack.”