Murder on Wheels (16 page)

Piper shook his head. “Who? No, they found him all right, and he is on his way down to Headquarters now. But your cowboy friend, Buck Keeley, has blew the town.” The Inspector made a vague gesture.

“Lieutenant Keller says that they went busting up to the Hotel Senator and found only Buck’s sister, Rose. And when she heard who they were, she flopped in a faint!”

Miss Withers’ eyebrows showed surprise. “Oscar, has it occurred to you that Rose Keeley isn’t the blushing violet type? She’s been fainting a good deal oftener than seems natural to me, unless—” The Inspector suddenly interrupted.

“I’ve got it! At last we’ve discovered a decent motive! They called Laurie Stait the bad twin, didn’t they? He was supposed to be a bit on the make with the fair sex ? Well, he and this Rose Keeley got a case on each other out at the ranch this summer. But brother Buck didn’t approve of his sister marrying any Eastern playboys, so he broke it up. And then when they left the ranch for the Rodeo tour and came to New York, he discovered that his sister was seeing Laurie again here, and he bumped him off with his own rope from the top of a bus, just like you said. And the sister knows or suspects, only she won’t squawk on her brother. That’s why she faints so easy!” He looked at the school-teacher for approval.

Miss Withers surveyed him thoughtfully. “Closer, Oscar. But still you don’t win a baby doll. Why should Buck Keeley object to his sister marrying an Easterner with money? I should think it would be just the kind of a marriage he would like to arrange.”

“You’re wrong, Hildegarde. Naturally, Buck Keeley would object to his sister’s getting involved with a weak-kneed dude from the city. He’d want her to marry a son of the sagebrush.”

“Laurie Stait doesn’t look so weak-kneed to me. He played football at Columbia, you know. And I think you’ve been reading too much Zane Grey. People are pretty much alike, east or west. A rancher who tours with a Rodeo every winter isn’t apt to keep his natural simplicity very long.”

“That’s all very well. But Buck Keeley lammed, didn’t he? He took a runout powder, and that’s a pretty good confession of guilt. We’ll have him, though, inside of a few hours. Then we’ll see what story he tells when the boys put the sweat on him. Maybe he’ll have an excuse to offer why his rope got around Laurie Stait’s neck, but believe me, it better be good.” The Inspector rubbed his hands together, and he did not conceal the fact that in his opinion things were picking up.

“Are you going to throw the sister into jail, too?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. We’ll just put somebody on the job of tailing her. Maybe the brother will try to get in touch with her, or she’ll try to make a break and go to him if he’s still in town. Rose Keeley ought to make a good decoy, what?”

Miss Withers started suddenly. “A decoy? Maybe you’re right, Oscar. And maybe someone thought of that before. Perhaps she’s had practice at the job!”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning whatever you like. There’s something here that doesn’t meet the eye.”

The Inspector laughed. “All right, all right. I know that you’re still suspecting Lew Stait of killing his brother. Or maybe you think the human rabbit, Hubert, got up courage enough to do the job? I suppose that Aunt Abbie was his accomplice?”

Miss Withers shook her head. “I didn’t say I suspected Hubert, or the surviving twin, either. It doesn’t seem likely that a boy could kill his own twin in cold blood, it would be like suicide. But Lew Stait hasn’t explained a lot of things. He had no good alibi, in spite of the little maid. He made no effort to keep his date with Dana that night. And why did he hurry so to marry her the next morning? Why did he sneak past me in the hall in the Stait house last night, and why was the letter from Dana to Laurie pinned against the bottom of the kitchen table?” She got no answer to her questions.

The Inspector was struggling into his coat. “I’ll take this rope along with me,” he told Miss Withers. “I’ve got to get down and have my little chat with Charley Waverly. I may learn something about the Stait family, even if I’ve changed my mind about the possibility of Waverly’s being involved. Want to come along?”

She shook her head. “I’m very tired,” she informed him. “Besides, I want to get up early tomorrow and make a little visit to the Stait house.”

“What for? Going to congratulate the young married couple? Or have you got a sudden desire to hear the old lady’s parrot swear a few more swears?”

“It might be both,” Miss Withers told him. “But it doesn’t happen to be either. I just want to borrow a book.”

The Inspector stared at her, and then shrugged his shoulders. “I must be dashing, Hildegarde. Go up to Stait’s if you like, but I think I’ll have this case settled before you get there. Buck Keeley will be dragged back to town before he gets very far, and then we’ll see. Good-night, and pleasant dreams.”

“Good-night,” Miss Withers said softly. But when the Inspector was gone she did not seek her couch. She left a note for her roommates saying that she was going to be out late and please not to shoot the night bolt, and shortly afterward she was striding vigorously along Central Park West.

There were two men lounging in the lobby of the Hotel Senator whom Miss Withers recognized, but she did not speak to them, nor did they acknowledge her. Operatives on duty never greet each other, she knew.

Unannounced, she rang the bell of room number 1012. There was a long delay, and then a low, throaty voice answered from behind the panel. “Go away!”

Miss Withers rang the bell again, and then the door was suddenly thrown open. Rose Keeley stood there, dressed in mules and a ridiculous pink wrapper. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her hair was touselled.

When she saw who it was she tried to swing the door shut, but Miss Withers interposed an agile oxford.

“You’d better talk to me,” she suggested.

“I’ll talk to nobody,” said Rose Keeley hysterically. “If you want to arrest me, come on and arrest me. But I won’t talk.”

“I’m not a regular member of the police force,” Miss Withers explained. “I’d like to help you, young woman. This visit is unofficial.”

“You expect me to believe that? You’re a spy, I know it! A police spy! Leave me alone, I tell you!”

“Calm yourself, Rose,” advised Miss Withers. “Don’t you know that in your condition it’s dangerous to work yourself into hysteria?”

The girl’s eyes widened, and she stepped back. “You … you know?”

Miss Withers came into the hotel room, and seated herself in a chair near the bed. “Of course I know,” she admitted. “A girl like you doesn’t faint at the drop of a hat unless she’s in what they call an interesting condition.”

“Interesting? Well, it didn’t interest the ones it should have, let me tell you!” Rose pulled herself up short, “What do you want to know? Why did you come here?”

“I came here to find out the truth,” Miss Withers told her. “I think it’s high time we got some truth into this business. Tell me, Rose, was it Laurie Stait?”

The girl hesitated, and a hard, almost calculating look came into her eyes. “Yes, it was.” Then she suddenly regretted herself. “No, if you must know the truth, it wasn’t. I …”

She threw herself on the bed. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. My brother had nothing to do with what happened to Laurie Stait. I know what you’re thinking. I know what the police are thinking. Maybe Buck did threaten Laurie, but he didn’t mean anything by it. I swear he didn’t. If he’s gone away it’s only because somebody used a rope to kill that Stait fellow, and Buck knew they’d try to pin it on him. He has a horror of being behind bars, even overnight.”

“Did you love Laurie Stait?” Miss Withers asked the question softly.

Rose Keeley laughed in her face. “Me? I should say not! Love him? I’ll never love any man as long as I live. They’re all alike. Not that he wasn’t a nice enough kid out at the ranch last summer …”

Miss Withers remembered something. “Didn’t Laurie have a dog out there, a young collie dog?”

“Oh, you mean Rowdy! We got him from the kennels at Butte early in the summer because Buck thought it would be nice for the dudes to have a pup to play with. Only Rowdy attached himself to Laurie Stait and wouldn’t pay any attention to anybody else. I guess blooded dogs are thataway. It pretty near broke poor Rowdy’s heart when Mr. Stait—I mean Laurie—had to leave the ranch and come back east. He wanted to buy him, but he didn’t have any place here to keep him, he said. Rowdy wouldn’t chow for a week, he was so lonesome after Mr. Stait left. He’s never been the same dog since—he still meets the station wagon every day expecting to see his pard come back.”

“And he never will,” put in Miss Withers. “Because the man he learned to love is going to be laid away in a vault day after tomorrow. Murder is bad business, Rose. I hope your brother didn’t have anything to do with it, but you realize that it looks bad for him. Unless he can prove where he was at the time of the murder.”

“But he can! He told me all about it. Buck has a perfect alibi. He was with Carrigan and some of the boys, and they got into a fight with a policeman outside the hotel here, over a taxicab bill. They’ll all bear witness …

“But they have,” Miss Withers told her grimly. “Don’t you remember? You claimed earlier today that Buck was with you in the hotel here at that hour, and Carrigan and that Mr. Laramie White insisted that he wasn’t with them. Isn’t that right?”

Rose Keeley nodded her head, miserably. Her eyes were clouded, and she seemed to be torn between a desire to say something and the necessity for keeping quiet. Miss Withers rose to her feet.

“One thing more, young lady. When was the last time you saw Laurie Stait?”

“Him? Why, when he left the ranch last summer …”

“You didn’t see him here in New York?”

She shook her head. “I tried to phone him, but he wouldn’t see me. I … Oh, there’s no use. I won’t say anything more, and you can’t make me.”

Miss Withers patted her shoulder. “I’d like to help you, child,” she said. “And the best advice I can give you is to go down and tell the whole story to Inspector Piper in the morning. If you know where your brother is, you’d better advise him to come back and face the music. If he isn’t guilty, nothing can happen to him. The sooner you get it over with the sooner you can go back to your own country, and be happy …”

She drew a blank on that one. Rose Keeley sat up on the bed, eyes wide and lips twisted in a sneer.

“Go back west, and be happy? Say, you don’t think I like it out there, do you?”

“But I thought …”

“You’ve never lived through a Wyoming winter,” Rose Keeley told her savagely. “Snowdrifts up to your armpits, blizzards three days a week, and mail about twice a month. You’ve never lived a day’s drive from the nearest town, where you can’t buy anything or go anywhere or have any fun! I hate it, I tell you!”

“But the summers …”

“The summers are great for the dudes, that have money. They come out and howl about the air and the sun and the mountains. But for us it’s just a lot of damned hard work. Playing bellhop for a lot of tourists. Say, the only good times I ever have are on these tours with the Rodeo, and there’s no money in them. The only advantage of it is that we get away from that damned prairie for awhile, and see a little city life!”

“If you feel that way about it, why don’t you leave the ranch and get a job here?”

Rose Keeley laughed again, with a bitter ring in her voice. “What would I do here? Who wants a girl who can shoot and ride a horse? The only way I could ever leave the ranch is to marry somebody from the city. That’s my only chance for happiness. Otherwise I’ll be buried out there on the prairie all my life!”

“I see,” said Miss Withers. And she was beginning to, at that.

A
YOUNGISH MAN SAT IN
the none-too-easy chair of Inspector Piper’s sanctum, and tugged at the wisp of yellow moustache which adorned his upper lip. His general air was that of a crisp and decisive young business man, as indeed he had shown himself.

“Mr. Charles Waverly,” began the Inspector heavily, “I’m sorry to trouble you at this hour of the evening. But there are a few little questions I’d like to ask you in regard to the murder of Laurie Stait. We’re trying to investigate every angle of the case, and as the family lawyer you can be of the utmost assistance to us if you wish.”

Charles Waverly intimated with a wave of his hand that he would be only too delighted to aid the Inspector.

“Very well. You are related to the Stait family yourself, are you not?”

The lawyer nodded. “I happen to be a grand-nephew of the late Roscoe Stait, husband of the present Mrs. Stait.”

“That’s the old lady with the naked parrot?” Waverly grinned momentarily, and nodded.

The Inspector made much ado about lighting up a cigar, though he seemingly forgot to offer his guest one. “Just what is the condition of the family fortune? The old lady is pretty rich, isn’t she?”

“Yes and no,” the young lawyer answered, without hesitation. “The Stait fortune was at one time very large. Most of it is invested in New York real estate, which at the present time is sadly depreciated in value. I should say that the yearly income is in the neighborhood of thirty thousand dollars, or slightly more. However, it is not correct to say that Mrs. Stait, or Gran as we call her, is particularly wealthy, because according to the terms of her husband’s will she only controls the income during her lifetime. The property is in trust, entail is the legal term, and on Mrs. Stait’s death it devolves upon the nearest male heir of the Stait family.”

The Inspector nodded. “That would be Lew Stait?”

“What? Oh, yes, yes, of course. Laurie was the elder twin, then Lew of course would be the next in line.”

“And after Lew?” The question was almost too casual.

Charles Waverly looked surprised. “In the event of Lew’s dying without male heirs of his body—that is, without a son—the estate would devolve upon Hubert Stait, his cousin.”

“And after Hubert?”

The lawyer smiled again. “I’m afraid I’ll have to confess that I myself would be the lucky one in that event, Inspector. Roscoe Stait made explicit directions in his will that his property should never go outright to a woman, and he tried in every possible way to make sure that the male line would continue. If I were to inherit, I should have legally to adopt the name of Stait, however.”