Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene (20 page)

“I don’t quarrel with the motivation. I question the method. Poison, it seems to me, is hardly the weapon that would be used by an angry man seeking retribution. Then there is the problem of how he could have gotten it aboard the yacht and into the decanter of sherry.”

“Poison could be the weapon of an angry man if he happened also to be a clever man who wanted to improve his chances of not being caught on the scene. We’ve been over that. As for getting the stuff aboard, anyone could have wandered on and off that tubful of nuts, and you know it.”

“Possibly. Your theory makes it essential, however, to assume that it was indeed the captain who was supposed to die. Circumstantial evidence, as I keep repeating, points to Lenore Gregory as the logical victim.”

“Nuts. Are you still harping on that? How would Bruno Wagner know that the captain kept sherry just for Lenore Gregory? Chances are, he didn’t know about the girl at all. The captain took a swig from the wrong bottle, that’s all, and your temporary ward can thank God and the angels for an incredible piece of good luck.”

“Speaking of luck,” Inspector Piper said, “have you had any in trying to run down this fellow?”

“Not yet. He’s probably blown town. But we will. Sooner or later we’ll turn him up.”

“What about the man my young friend Al saw slipping off the yacht the night of the murder?” said Miss Withers. “Any lead on him?”

“Not yet. There may never be. After all, the description was pretty vague, and hippie types are hardly unusual in San Francisco.”

“Or,” said Inspector Piper mournfully, “anywhere else.”

Captain Kelso took a swallow of his excellent coffee and fished out a package of cigarettes, which he offered around without takers.

“I’ve been occupied with another little project,” he said. “I’ve been checking into the past of Alura O’Higgins. The San Francisco part, I mean. I don’t mind telling you that Alura’s another one for the books. A real twenty-one carat gal. A lot of her local history is hazy, but the mainstream, so to speak, comes clear. Several years after she arrived in San Francisco, she established a relationship with a local nabob. You two, being foreigners, might not recognize the name, but any native would recognize it soon enough. Old family. Money you couldn’t count. All that. There wasn’t anything particularly secretive about the relationship. It was well known in many quarters, and even generally accepted. But like most relationships of that kind, it had to end. Everything, so far as I could learn, was amicable. No threats, recriminations, hard feelings. At least not overtly. Soon after the break, Alura opened the Royal Edward, and her career as a restaurateur began. If there was any blackmail involved, it must have been of a very genteel kind. And the restaurant has been successful. Even the local nabob still goes there on occasion to dine. If there was a little genteel blackmail, as I said, to get it all started, there has almost certainly been no follow-up. No demand for seconds or thirds. Most likely it was a friendly arrangement. A settlement. No regrets. Both parties satisfied.”

“I’ve felt from the beginning,” said Miss Withers, “that Alura O’Higgins was an exceptional woman. Aletha, her sister, is also exceptional, but in a way almost diametrically opposed. She lives in a world of fantasy; she is a liar who believes in lies, and is therefore a seeker of truth in her own way. Alura is a realist; she is a woman of remarkable acumen who is capable, nevertheless, of strong attachments.”

“Hildy, old girl,” Inspector Piper said, a trace of caustic in his voice, “I see that you have not lost your skill as a character analyst. What did you do, read her palm or count the bumps on her head?”

While Miss Withers was snorting and taking a deep breath, Captain Kelso intervened deftly.

“Character analyst?” he said. “That’s just what I’ve been looking for. Between times of doing other things, I’ve been going over my notes on the kooks who were aboard the yacht when, or soon after, Captain Westering died. On the grounds of opportunity, given the method of murder, none of them are excluded as suspects. On the grounds of motive, the captain himself saw to it that nearly all of them
could
have had one, depending on how easily triggered they were. As the head docs say, you have the precipitating factor on the one hand, and the predisposing factor on the other. To put it another way, it takes various degrees of pressure to incite various persons to the same reaction. That leaves us with character. What I need is someone to go over my kooks with me to try to determine which of them would have been capable, or most likely, to commit murder for jealousy or revenge or one of the common motives. Murder for gain, I must say, seems to be out. Miss Withers, you were there. You went through the whole mess with me. Volunteer?”

“Why not?” Miss Withers said. “You have bought my services with a filet of sole.”

“An exorbitant price, if you ask me,” Inspector Piper said.

Captain Kelso grinned sourly and hauled out his notebook. He began to flip pages. “All right,” he said. “We’ll skip Aletha and Alura for the present, since we’ve already spent considerable time on them. Otherwise, here they come. First, Lenore Gregory.”

“Absurd,” said Miss Withers promptly.

“I knew you’d say that, of course. I only asked to show that I don’t have any pets. And to show, maybe, that you haven’t sold me a bill of goods quite yet. Now that she’s out of the way, let’s get on with it. The Prophet Onofre.”

“He is either quite mad or an extremely clever charlatan. I’m not sure which. If he is the former, he might kill for many irrational reasons. As the instrument of God, for instance. If he is the latter, I doubt it. Con men and charlatans seldom kill. They are too clever by half. They prefer cutting the small loss to risking the big one.”

“I agree. But in my opinion, the Prophet is not a conscious phony. He’s a flaming lunatic. Well, now comes my favorite. My pick of the lot. Purely wishful thinking, of course. What think you of sweet Nathan Silversmith?”

“Quite capable. Capable of any pose, fraud or atrocity, I should think. Moreover, like most such men, he must be cowardly. I always associate poisoning with cowards, although there are many cases to the contrary.”

“Well done, Miss Withers. The nail on the head. Too bad I haven’t been able to hook him to a convincing motive. But there’s still time. Have a go at Bernadine Toller.”

The calling of the roll had brought it all back vividly to Miss Withers—the fantasy of distortions, the corrosive fatigue, the strange cast of disturbing characters, engaging in antics somehow disoriented. Now, at the sound of her name, the vision of the cocktail waitress from Denver materialized distinctly. The girl who was sort of impetuous. The girl who had a thing going with the captain before Lenore Gregory appeared on the scene. A thing you could feel like goose pimples. She looked at Miss Withers with her empty eyes, and smiled her terrible empty smile, and spoke with her frail and brittle voice in an effect of little-girl demureness that was somehow obscene.

“A frightening girl,” said Miss Withers. “Thoroughly amoral, if I’m any judge. She would, I think, do without remorse whatever she felt compelled to do, and it would take very little to compel her. I wonder, however, if she has even the rudimentary knowledge of botany that would be essential in the use of hemlock as a poison.”

“That’s a crucial point with all of them. Who had a knowledge of poisonous plants in this area? Who had opportunity to acquire the plant and the know-how to extract the poisonous element?”

“Well, that knowledge is not precisely esoteric. Anyone motivated to commit murder with a poison virtually impossible to trace could easily acquire all the information necessary, if he didn’t already have it.”

“Nevertheless, it would take a special kind of person to get the idea in the first place, and to carry it out in the second. You may remember, incidentally, that we actually have a botany student among our suspects.”

“I remember. Carl Cramer. A most unprepossessing young man. He was not only a botany student, but volunteered the information.”

“Why not? He knew we’d find out. If incriminating information is anticipated, it’s only smart to try to make an impression of innocence by volunteering it beforehand. But no motive that I’ve been able to smell out so far. Not even a simple motive like jealousy, which popped up all over the place in that emotional cesspool. Take Adrian Hogue, for example.”

“I’ll be happy to. Together with Corrine Leicester, who was his
very
good friend. Did you interpret that euphemistic expression as I did? I thought so. I also had the conviction that Corrine had recently transferred some of the natural friendliness of her warm heart to Captain Westering, whom she found, as you will recall, to be rare, magnetic and irresistible. This surely excited a certain jealousy in the heart of Adrian Hogue. How deadly that jealousy may have been is a matter for conjecture. At any rate, he did not share Corrine’s exalted opinion of the captain, and didn’t mind saying so. For that matter, neither did any of the other males aboard. It sounded to me almost like a conspiracy. There’s safety in numbers, as the saying goes. But while we’re evaluating Adrian as a possible murderer, we mustn’t neglect Corrine. She betrayed, you’ll recall, a thinly disguised hatred for Lenore Gregory, who she thought had supplanted her in the captain’s capricious favor. Assuming still that Lenore was the real target.”

“Forget it. Our murderer hit his target. Maybe by luck instead of true aim, but nevertheless, he hit it. I’m convinced of that.”

“Why?”

“Because the captain was a natural victim, that’s why. The woods were full of people who had reason to wish him dead.”

“I see that there would be nothing gained in debating the point. Finish the roster.”

“Right. Rebecca Welch.”

“A frightened schoolgirl. A flower child with shattered illusions. She’s had the shock of her young life. When this is over, she’ll head for Ohio as fast as Papa’s bread can take her.”

“I concur. Still, I thought she was a little too vehement about verifying Lenore Gregory’s coming to find her in the crew’s quarters. She could have been lying. You won’t like that, so I’ll move on. Consider Harriet Owens.”

“Let’s see. Poet. From Kansas City, as I remember. Diminutive and intense. Feels things desperately. She’s moody. Possibly manic-depressive. Up high or down low. Suicide far more likely than homicide. If she ever kills anyone, it will be herself.”

“How about her boy friend? At least, I got the notion he was her boy friend. I’ve put it in my notes.”

“It seems probable, inasmuch as they traveled here from Kansas City together. Carey Singer you mean. Professor. Assistant or associate or some-such. You might give him the same motive as Adrian Hogue. On those grounds, I prefer Hogue.”

“Excepting sweet Nathan, I’m impartial. The next name I’ve got is Simon Lefevre. So far as I’m concerned, you can ignore him. I know Simon. I’m not sure if he’s living in nitty-gritty or if he’s merely got some kind of spiritual tapeworm. Anyhow, I’ll lay odds he’s never killed anyone, or ever will. It would just be too much trouble.”

“Well, omitting Delmar Faulkenstein, about whom I have no clear impressions, one way or the other, that leaves us with Leslie Fitzgerald, about whom I have some very clear impressions, indeed. I paid her a visit in her studio this morning, you know. She is an extraordinarily good artist. Perhaps even a great one. She is devoted to her work, and she works hard at it. But aside from that, and ignoring a blind spot or two, such as her commitment to this absurd peace voyage, she is a remarkably hard-headed and practical young woman. If she decided that it was necessary to eliminate someone as an impediment or a threat, she would not hesitate at murder, at least no longer than she needed to determine how best to do it. But it would be only as a last resort, and only after some very cool and calculated weighing of the odds pro and con. She would murder, I suspect, just as she makes love. Quite deliberately, that is, but with decision and passion once she had committed herself. Precisely as she indulged in her brief affair with Captain Westering.”

“Affair? What affair?”

“Oh, yes. She and the captain had an affair. Would you be interested in hearing about it?”

Captain Kelso sputtered, incapable for the moment of coherent speech, and the inspector, wallowing in the delicious experience of seeing a familiar and infuriating tactic pulled on someone besides himself, grinned demoniacally, like an Irish elf. Meanwhile, Miss Withers went on to relate the details of her conversation with Leslie Fitzgerald, to which both captain and inspector were immediately listening with as much interest as she could have wished. When she was finished, Kelso leaned back and stroked his bald pate thoughtfully.

“Are you suggesting,” he said, “that Leslie Fitzgerald slipped Westering a hemlock highball because he was deserting her couch for another? Or, if you prefer, that she tried unsuccessfully to slip it to Lenore Gregory as the assumed trespasser on her preserves?”

“No. No man could mean that much to her. Not Captain Westering or any other. I am suggesting that circumstances of intimacy often bring about the rash revelation of matters better left unrevealed. I am wondering, in brief, if the seed of some other motive for murder was planted in Leslie Fitzgerald’s studio.”

“It will bear looking into.” Captain Kelso leaned forward, lifted his empty coffee cup, and set it down again with a rattle in its saucer. “One of two things is certain. Westering was killed because of the bubbling mess of emotions generated on that packed, stinking tub; or he was killed because of something that happened in his past. As for me, I lean toward the latter view. I want to get my hands on Bruno Wagner, whoever the hell he really is.”

This seemed to be a firmly placed period, and so the trio, fed and still frustrated, paid and departed. Or Captain Kelso, rather, paid. He drove Miss Withers and Inspector Piper directly back to the Canterbury, where he let them out at the entrance.

“You two will want to be alone,” he said with a frightful lewd leer. “See you later.”

He drove away, leaving the two old cronies standing at the curb.