Murders in, Volume 2 (19 page)

“Well, I ask you to assist. If I let you see Miss Dawson, you tell her to be frank with us. You gave 'em some good advice before—give her some now.”

“They don't take my advice.”

“Have a try at it.”

Gamadge hurried out, and was glad to find his own small car at the curb, with the garage man in it. They exchanged a few words, the garage man walked away, and Gamadge got under the wheel and drove up to Seventy-fourth Street. That thoroughfare presented a busy and crowded aspect; several cars were parked near the Morton house, and sightseers gaped at it.

A policeman let him into the hall, giving him at the same time what Eliza Daggett might have described as an old-fashioned look.

“Protecting the family, are you?” asked Gamadge cheerfully. “That's good. Anybody else on the job?”

“There's a man inside the basement door, and one in the backyard. Nobody could get across those fences without a ladder but the officer is there.”

“Splendid.”

“You're to go up to the second floor front.”

“Thanks.” Gamadge was about to do so, when a procession issued from a backroom on the next story, and began slowly to descend the stairs. It consisted of Duncannon, elegantly tailored, with a black Homburg hat on the side of his head; a plain-clothes man, who had him by the arm; Luigi, completely demoralized, carrying three pieces of handsome luggage; and a terrified maid, laden with a bundle of coats, three walking sticks, and an umbrella.

“What's all this?” Gamadge turned in astonishment to the officer beside him. “Are they arresting Duncannon?”

“I wouldn't know.”

T
HE PLAIN-CLOTHES MAN,
a thin, carroty individual who looked as if he had not had much sleep for some time, was not, Gamadge saw, so much escorting Duncannon as propping him up. He addressed Gamadge in some bewilderment, under which lurked a faint amusement:

“That sleeping stuff he had last night didn't work good; we neither of us had more than a couple of naps. But now it seems to have come back on him.”

Duncannon's face was greenish, and his eyes were nearly closed. He lurched against the banisters, and said thickly: “All I want is to get out of this house. Just get me out of this house.”

“O.K., O.K., we're going.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs in safety. The maid flung her burden of coats over the rail, propped the sticks and the umbrella against them, and scuttled off through the curtains into the back hall. Luigi put the bags down, hovered distractedly for a moment, and followed her. The detective steered his patient to the oak bench, where he sank down, his head lolling. The Homburg hat fell off, and was picked up by the uniformed man. If Duncannon had only been wearing a ruff and trunk hose, Gamadge thought, he would have been exactly right for a Medici after a banquet—or after a dose of his own aqua tofana.

“What'll I do with him?” asked the detective, annoyed.

“Get me out of here,” muttered Duncannon.

“All right. I'll send for a cab.”

“Cab? No cab. My wife's closed car.”

The plain-clothes man caught sight of Luigi, who had been peeping behind the hall curtains. “Here, you, call up the garage and get him his car,” he said.

Luigi vanished. Duncannon's escort looked down at his charge irresolutely. “Perhaps I ought to have the doctor for him, again.”

“Where's he going?” asked Gamadge.

“Wish I knew. He wants to go to the Waldorf. Durfee hasn't talked it out with the rest of 'em, yet; they're all in the dining room—the whole works. The D.A., the Commissioner, Bedlowe the lawyer, and young Vauregard.”

Duncannon half opened his eyes, of which the pupils were almost invisible. “Waldorf,” he said, “or jail. Anywhere, out of this place. It's unsafe for human habitation, and there probably won't be a living soul left in it by the beginning of next week.”

“Don't talk that way.” The plain-clothes man prodded him gently in the ribs. “Wake up.”

“I am awake. I said to Angela: ‘Let's pack up and get out of here, take a flat. Let the house go for taxes—that'll freeze out the whole bunch of 'em.' That sister of hers—always interfering, always talking about keeping down expenses. I said: ‘We won't keep down expenses while the family's so big.' Thick as thieves, she and Clara. Payne laughing at 'em all. Dick couldn't stand the house—never stayed in it, if he could go somewhere else. Carrying on about the zombi. That poor little zombi!” exclaimed Duncannon, suddenly violent. “Poor little thing, perhaps she's dead, too. Everybody dead, like those plays Angie was so crazy about.” He rose, lifted an arm, and maintained a strange, stiff pose, his eyes on some imagined gallery, his left foot well behind him. He declaimed, hollowly:

And that's the play Angie wants me to play in. She can't do that stuff. I can't do that stuff.” And indeed, Mr. Duncannon's recitation left much to be desired.

The uniformed policeman stood rooted in his tracks; another official was peering over Durfee's shoulder between the hall curtains; and no less a personage than Bridge, the producer, gazed at Duncannon from the entrance to the drawing room.

“All we need is a stenographer,” said the plain-clothes man.

“He must be shamming,” murmured the policeman.

“You want a statement?” Duncannon looked about him, and seized a protruding knob on the gilt mirror frame to steady himself. “I'll make another. Give me police protection, and I'll do anything.”

“Protection from whom, Mr. Duncannon?” asked Gamadge, in a calm, carrying voice.

Duncannon eyed him. “You're the fellow Robina brought in.”

“That's who I am.”

“You know something, Gamadge? My wife was ashamed of her profession. Wouldn't let that girl Clara Dawson go on the stage—Oh, no. Knew too much about it, she said. Couldn't keep off it herself, though. Thought I was so lucky to marry into such a family. What do I get for it?”

“Lots of money,” said Gamadge gently.

“I won't live to get it. Not on your life,” said Duncannon. “Here, now,” protested the plain-clothes man. “It's all a plot. They've framed me. Don't you know the name of our new play?” He squinted in Bridge's direction. Bridge, who looked as if he were attending a rehearsal, and disliking it very much, said nothing. “
The White Devil
is the name of it,” continued Duncannon, “but it's got another. Don't make out you don't know it, Bridge!”

“I know it, all right.”

“Tell 'em, then; tell 'em!”

“The History of the Duke di Brachiano and His Two Wives; of Which He Killed the First.”
Bridge recited it in a monotone.

“Yes, and that's what they'll all say. It's a plot.”

“We've had enough of it.” Durfee surged into the hall. “No more acting here, if you don't mind, Mr. Duncannon. McGann, hasn't that car come?”

The policeman opened the door, looked out, and said that it was there—“with a chauffeur.”

“Then put him into it and take him down to the Waldorf, Simmons, for the love of Pete. Stick to him like grim death. If he won't have you, he can't stay.”

Duncannon was assisted out of the house and down the steps. Three photographers snapped him as he stumbled into the big car; he insisted on pausing, doubled up and with a foot inside the door, to turn his head and solemnly remove his hat. The effect was one of extreme drunkenness, and the delighted cameramen were evidently accepting it as such.

Dick Vauregard joined Gamadge in the vestibule, and watched the shining Rolls move away.

“Listen,” he said. “Forget that business at the Brightstone, will you?”

“Forget it? You went a mile out of your way to impress it on me,” objected Gamadge, with a look of surprise.

“That was yesterday.” The young man, white-faced after a heavy night, and coatless, seemed more disheveled than he actually was. He was a type whose lumbering bigness requires continual valeting. He went on, choosing his words: “Truth is, I'd been getting sore at him for a long time. He's perfectly right—none of us liked him, and he knew it. If Aunt Rob had known about his girlfriends I bet she'd have taken Clara and left the house. But just the same, he was fond of Aunt Angie, in his own way, and I'm not skunk enough to try to put a thing like this on him.”

“You never felt it your duty to let Mrs. Morton know that he was—er—broadening his interests?”

“Aunt Angie never believed anything she didn't want to. She would have had a headache, got Tom on the carpet, believed every word he said to her, and thrown me out as a troublemaker.”

“Mr. Duncannon realized all that, I suppose? I thought he was rather cool when we walked in on him yesterday.”

“He wasn't as cool as all that, but he knew I wouldn't talk.”

“Did you see his performance, just now?”

“Some of it. I'm sorry for the guy. When he comes to, and lets himself face all this, it'll knock him silly.”

“I suppose he isn't used to drugs of any kind?”

“Drugs! He and Aunt Angie coddled themselves like two old invalids. He's always going to Lestrange about something, usually his precious throat. The house reeks with his sprays and gargles half the time. He's cut down on liquor, and he's stopped eating too much. Weighs himself six times a day. Makes me sick, to think of his getting all that money—our money.” And Dick Vauregard looked decidedly sick, as he said the words.

“How does he think he came to get it?” asked Gamadge. “Do his maunderings mean anything in particular?”

“He's just letting off a lot of stuff he's been keeping bottled up for years.”

“He doesn't really accuse anybody of these murders?”

“He can't imagine who's responsible, any more than the rest of us can. Last night, when he first saw her in the back room there, he went right to pieces; if he'd had any suspicions, he'd have come out with them. All this talk of his is the result of that stuff they gave him.”

“None of you has any ideas on the subject? Not that I expect you to confide in me, of course.”

“I wish I had anything to confide. We've given up. Aunt Rob has gone to bed and pulled the blanket up over her ears; can't face it, much less discuss it. Clara and I stick to it that it was the Smith gang—we can't see any other explanation at all. We say Aunt Angie recognized the girl from our descriptions, and that the gang killed her to prevent her giving them away.”

“How do you figure that the gang got in?”

“None of us can figure it, unless she let somebody in herself, not knowing he was in with them.”

“But she must have made an appointment, to do that. Was I to meet this somebody?”

Dick Vauregard, looking uncomfortable, said he didn't know.

“And I don't see,”' continued Gamadge, “why they're turning Duncannon loose, and keeping the rest of you cooped up. The police usually make a beeline for the biggest financial motive.”

“They're not turning him loose.”

“I bet he could evade that weary cop, if he wanted to.”

Young Vauregard looked at him. “It's crazy to think that he would hurt Aunt Angie. Crazy.”

“Your tone lacks conviction.”

“I can't help my tone. And I can tell you, I'm not sorry to be cooped up for a day or two. It's better than having to rush down to headquarters every time they want to ask us a question, and it's better than being trailed by newsmen and cameras, or having a character like that fellow of Duncannon's trailing around after us. Being a lawyer myself, though I'm not much of one yet, I can see the point in their methods; but it's hard on the girls.”

“The police can't coop you all up forever.”

“They don't know what to do about us. Old Bedlowe is hovering around reminding them of points of law they probably never heard of—I hadn't, myself—and they can't very well throw us all into jail as material witnesses. They'd like to. The trouble is, there's such a dickens of a lot of money involved—for Aunt Rob and Duncannon, anyhow—that they hate to take their eyes off us and look elsewhere.”

“I dare say they are looking elsewhere, though.”

“Well, they're all out after Smith, and they've had these Chandors up here, and they've actually got poor Bridge on their list, as you know.”

“But they haven't heard about Miss Garfield.”

“Hope they won't. We don't want that kind of thing brought into it to amuse the tabloids.”

“The police would like additional motive on somebody's part. They'd embrace Miss Garfield with open arms.”

“See here—you won't put them on?”

Gamadge said: “If they ask me whether Duncannon had women friends in the profession, I shan't lie about it; but they won't ask me. They won't have to. Miss Garfield and anybody else of the kind will emerge; don't fool yourself.”

Dick Vauregard said, after a pause: “Cameron Payne—he always was a clever brute—he says that Uncle probably found out for himself about the Smith swindle—the book gave it away to him, somehow. I suppose it ought to have dawned on the poor old thing that there might have been a duplicate set somewhere in the world.”

“It didn't seem to be dawning on him when I left him on Thursday afternoon.”

“Well, Payne says Uncle Imbrie couldn't face the blow to his pride, or his feelings, or something, and killed himself. He says John probably found him, and saw the bottle, and got rid of it—so the Vauregards wouldn't have a suicide in the family.”