Murders in, Volume 2 (16 page)

“If you want to implicate her, and keep her implicated, you must save the police from wasting time on that refugee angle.”

“Must?” Duncannon looked up, and gave him a haughty stare.

“Must. Remember that Miss Smith may turn up with some story of her own. Get in first with your own version, the true one, and it will be believed and attended to.”

Mrs. Morton sank down on the settee. “They will get all sorts of grotesque notions into their heads, and the newspapers will be awful. They will say there is insanity in the family. They will make fun of us. We shall all be ruined.”

“Those considerations won't weigh with the police if they find out that you have been withholding evidence against Miss Smith. Tell them that at first you couldn't take Mr. Vauregard's delusions seriously, but that now you feel you ought to hand over everything, fantastic though it may sound to them.”

Mrs. Morton gazed at him, and her lustrous eyes fell. She said: “If I feel that I cannot follow your suggestion, can I count upon you to be discreet?”

“Oh, yes. I shall be completely out of the case, from now on.”

Duncannon said: “Mr. Gamadge will know better than to spread stories about Angela Morton.”

Dick Vauregard suddenly exploded into violence:

“You conceited, gibbering fool! I can't help it, Aunt Angie! What kind of nitwit is he, to threaten a man like Gamadge, and now, of all times! As a lawyer, let me tell you that you people don't know your own luck.”

“Should we have been just a little luckier, though,” queried Duncannon, in a soft voice, “if our dear Robina hadn't persisted in getting an expert in?”

“Don't worry about the expert,” said Gamadge. “The only evidence that I had went when Volume II of the Byron set did. But if I'm to keep quiet about it, I must withdraw from the affair entirely. I accept no responsibility for what happened, but perhaps I ought to have looked at the thing with more detachment, and faced the possibility that we were dealing with people who stick at nothing. Don't play their game, Mrs. Morton—you are warned.”

Mrs. Morton again took her head in her hands. Gamadge, with a nod to the assembled company, left the room.

He was joined on the front steps by Dick Vauregard, who asked, rather eagerly: “That your car?”

“Such as it is, yes. Want a lift somewhere?”

“Breath of air. Those people are driving me crazy. Bunch of ostriches. Where are you going?”

“I was bound for home, but—”

“Just drop me there, wherever it is. I'll walk back.” They got into the car, and the young man continued:

“Some house of mourning! Poor old Great-uncle, I swear I think Clara and I are the only ones of the lot who cared a hang about him. Even Aunt Rob is dithering about the police, and what's going to happen to the estate if we're all locked up for life as conspirators to murder. I swear they all act as if they'd done it.”

“Well, your great-uncle was behaving very sillily; I suppose some of them couldn't help wishing he'd depart this life before he behaved even worse; and when such wishes are staggeringly fulfilled, nice-minded persons feel guilty.”

“Then I'm not a nice-minded person. Guilty! With crooks like the Chandors and the Smith woman in the offing!”

Gamadge did not reply until he had negotiated a green light, just in time. Then he said: “I was right about the danger, wasn't I?”

“Yes, confound you, you were. Who'd have thought it?”

“Shakespeare thought of it, and he thought Macbeth should have waded back to shore before he slaughtered all the innocents.”

Dick Vauregard gave him a quick, almost frightened look. “What do you mean?”

“Only that.”

“But in this case there are no more—those people won't kill anybody else. They don't have to.”

“Relax not thy vigilance. The murderer always thinks he has to, when he does it.”

“But how am I to watch, when I don't know…”

“Just keep an eye on them, and on yourself.”

“I can certainly look after myself.”

“Do it, then, but don't take your personal safety for granted. Nobody is big, strong and clever enough to do that with impunity.”

Young Vauregard, after another frowning look at him, fell silent. When they reached Gamadge's three-story brick house in the East Sixties, they found a car at the curb. A friend had stopped by to inveigle Gamadge up the Hudson. He proposed a short day of golf at their Westchester club, dinner, and a little bridge afterwards, if they could keep awake. He was a person of large philanthropies, and when he saw Vauregard's wistful face, he included him in the invitation.

“I don't think I'd better,” began the young man, awkwardly. “There's been a—I don't know whether you know—”

Gamadge's friend, who had given Dick Vauregard a sharp look when introduced to him, said cheerfully: “Nonsense. I suppose you don't feel up to much; come along anyway. Do you good. Probably won't see a soul you know, we're all fogies up there. Come as my guest, we'll get you home early.”

Vauregard said he would love some golf, but he wouldn't stay for dinner. He supposed he could get a taxi back to town?

“Sure you can.”

“Come along,” advised Gamadge.

“It's awfully good of you.” Vauregard sprinted for a cab, and returned within twenty minutes, his golf tweeds on and his clubs over his shoulder. They were nearing Riverdale when he asked, with a doubtful, rather shy look at Gamadge “Want to see something?”

“I always want to see something.”

“I may be wrong, but I think you will, if we stop at the Brightstone Inn. It's just along this back road on the right.”

“I wouldn't mind seeing a cocktail.”

“From what I gathered earlier today—and I wasn't eavesdropping, either; he was talking on the library telephone—you'll get a glimpse of something besides a cocktail.”

Gamadge's friend drew up at the Brightstone Inn, but elected to remain in the car. Gamadge and Dick Vauregard entered the cocktail lounge, and were rewarded by the sight of Mr. Duncannon, or as much as could be perceived of him behind discreet palms, in close conversation with a blond young lady, cheerfully dressed in Morocco pink. He caught their eyes, arose, and strolled forward, while his companion hastily downed a cocktail, and ordered another.

“Hello,” he said, with extreme nonchalance. “Want you to meet Miss Garfield. She's going to be in our show, and we've been talking over our scenes.” He gave Dick a casual, slightly amused glance. “Perhaps you've met the young lady?”

“No, I don't meet young ladies, much,” said Dick.

“Theatrical phrase. We're an old-fashioned profession.” He led the way back to his table.

Dick muttered in Gamadge's ear: “Runs to blondes, doesn't he? Miss What's-Her-Name is the spitting image of the zombi.”

“No, she isn't,” said Gamadge, who did not seem particularly amused, and who bowed to Miss Garfield gravely. While they waited for cocktails, he inquired, politely surveying her plump person:

“You're going to be in the Webster play, I believe? Very interesting.”

Miss Garfield's blue eyes twinkled. “Yes, and I'm going to be just as rotten as Tom is. Mr. Bridge is wild. He says I'm not the type at all, and he says Mrs. Morton is only having me in it because I won't get any sympathy from the audience.”

“Quiet down,” said Duncannon, removing the new coktail from in front of her. “Don't talk such rot.”

“But I ask you, Mr. Gimmidge, Gummidge, I'm sorry. I ask you, can I do that part? I ask you. But of course, you don't know the play, nobody does, why should they?”

“If you mean
The White Devil
—” protested Gamadge.

Miss Garfield laughed loudly, and Duncannon scowled at her. “I can't help it,” she said. “I can't get over that title.”

“But it's such a good one! Think of it in red lights! I know the play very well, Miss Garfield. Are you by any chance playing the countess—Isabella?”

“Chance is good! No chance to it, but I'm playing it.” Miss Garfield's round face beamed at him. “Can you imagine me? I'm Tom's wife, and he has me poisoned so he can marry Mrs. Morton. I tell him it ought to be the other way around, but did you ever notice, these handsome men never have any sense of humor.”

Mr. Duncannon's sense of humor, if he had one, did at the moment seem to have failed him. So had Dick Vauregard's. The latter swallowed his cocktail, got up, and said roughly: “Ought we to keep your friend waiting, Gamadge?”

“Perhaps not.” Gamadge also rose. “Good luck, Miss Garfield—you never know. Perhaps you'll walk away with the show.”

“I only have a couple of scenes.”

“Yes, but my goodness, think of the speech where you get finally mad and say what you'd like to do to Vittoria Corombona!”

Miss Garfield shrieked again, and Duncannon said: “If you start reciting that speech, I'll carry you out, Gloria!”

Gamadge, laughing, said that he should love to hear Miss Garfield recite, but that he must go. He shook hands with her, nodded to Duncannon, and followed Dick Vauregard from the room.

“They always come here,” growled that young man.

“To discuss the play?”

“Aunt Angie doesn't know a thing about it. I wouldn't tell her for anything. She thinks she got that little devil into the show herself; you ought to have heard Tom wangle it!”

Gamadge asked: “Did you bring me here to acquaint me with your step-uncle's more obvious failings, or to convey something more subtle?”

“I want you to see the whole situation. Perhaps you'll feel more like telling me exactly what you were warning me about, now that you've met Miss Garfield.”

“I am delighted to have met Miss Garfield, and I only hope that Providence will spare me to see her play the Countess Isabella, ‘sister of Francisco de Medicis, wife of Brachiano.'”

He added, after a pause, “Is Mrs. Morton quite, quite mad?”

Vauregard replied in a low voice: “She'll come to her senses sooner or later.”

The golf game was a success; it seemed to cheer the young man. Somebody gave him a lift back to town before seven, and the other two had their dinner early, and a rubber of bridge afterwards. Gamadge was deposited at his door promptly at eleven o'clock.

He was sleepily removing his tie when the telephone beside his bed rang softly.

“Hello,” he said. “Gamadge speaking.”

A husky voice answered, very low: “This is Angela Morton.”

 

G
AMADGE COLLECTED HIS
faculties. “Yes, Mrs. Morton?”

“Mr. Gamadge—can we be overheard?”

“No, quite safe.”

“I have been thinking about what you said this morning; thinking and thinking all day long. I must have your advice.”

“You have had it.”

“Oh, that; I shall talk to the police—tell them about everything; everything you want them to know.”

“You're very wise—but there's no question of my wanting anything, Mrs. Morton.”

“I understand that.” The hurried, husky voice was impatient. “I must have your advice before I talk to them. As—as a friend. Could you advise me as—as a friend, Mr. Gamadge? I feel that you understand these things. Your opinion is valuable, and you have a broad, civilized point of view.”

Gamadge frowned a little, but he said: “Thank you.”

“It's an imposition—I do so hate to ask it of you; but could you—could you possibly come up to the house now?”

“Well, I—”

“It's the only opportunity I have to see you alone. I don't want anyone to know.”

Gamadge paused. Then he asked: “Where are they all?”

“They're all upstairs. They've gone up for the night. I saw the servants up, too, and Luigi has gone home.”

“Where's Mr. Duncannon?”

“In his room; we said good night.”

“Anybody able to listen in at your end?”

“I turned the switch off. Mr. Gamadge, I wouldn't ask you if I didn't absolutely have to see you. Those police will be back again tomorrow. I must have your advice. I don't know where to turn.”

“You had it this morning. Better consult Bedlowe.”

“I want to talk to you first. You will tell me what I ought to do. You don't know the whole—you may be able to think of something.”

“Oh. How will you manage about letting me in?”

“Don't ring; I've put the door on the latch. Come in when you get here; I'll wait in the library. I'm there now. How soon can you get here?”

“A very few minutes.”

“I am nearly mad. Cameron and Bridge were here for dinner, and I could hardly—thank you so very much.”

Gamadge replaced the receiver, retied his tie, and wearily reassumed his tweed coat. He picked up a soft hat, and went quietly out of his sleeping house.

Regretting, not for the first time, that he lived in an eastbound street, he caught a taxi at the corner and got out at the corner of the Morton block. It was almost dark, and as silent as a street in a dead city. He walked to the Morton house, where no light showed, climbed the steps, and entered the vestibule. He turned the heavy bronze door handle, and pushed.

He found himself in complete darkness, except for the feeble glimmer of light that came from the drawing room. This proceeded from a red-shaded lamp in the library, whither he walked silently over the thick carpet.

Mrs. Morton sat at her desk with her back to him. She still wore the flowing black dress, but she now seemed to have brightened it by fastening a scarlet ribbon around her neck; the ends hung down her back almost to her waist, and one of them had a tassel on it.