Murders in, Volume 2 (21 page)

“How about Payne?”

“He's never sick.” The veiled look was in her eyes again. “He just has some stuff to take when he—when he can't sleep.”

“Thorwald, again?”

“No, he gets it through his own specialist, Doctor Schildmann.”

“Morphia, or something milder?”

“Something much milder. He never has morphia.”

“Well, I want you to go and get me all these drugs and medicaments, every one of them. If Payne won't let me have a look at his, I'll burgle his flat.”

Clara looked badly frightened. “Is it important?”

“Very.”

“The police have been all over our things. They took Dick's pistol and his guns. They took Tom Duncannon's collection of daggers. Do they think we're going to go around the house, shooting and stabbing one another?” He looked at her, and she said, her face white, “I forgot. I keep forgetting about Aunt Angie—I can't make it seem real.”

“Go on forgetting about it. I don't suppose Durfee pinched your drugs and medicines? Then get them for me. Just what you mentioned.”

She went out, returning presently with a pasteboard box cover, on which was displayed a collection of tubes and bottles. Gamadge fingered them, and also smelt them.

“Aspirin, little screw-top bottle, piece of cotton on top of the tablets; each tablet marked ‘Bayer.' Ephedrine, plain; brown bottle, rubber-capped nose dropper; colorless liquid, doesn't smell of anything. Chloretone Inhalant—recalls unhappy memories of steam sprays. Pyramidon; each tablet has a rosette on it; small tin tube. Another small tin tube, that you squeeze; cunning little nozzle. This the sty-soother?”

“Yes.”

“You put all these things back where they came from, Clara.”

“Mr. Gamadge—Cam's sleeping stuff?”

“I'll talk about it when you come back.”

She went off, and returned after two or three minutes empty-handed.

“Now,” said Gamadge. “Would you help me to get a look at Payne's sleeping medicine without his knowing about it?”

She studied his face for so long that at last he said, impatiently: “Whatever else you know or don't know, you're pretty certain of one thing—or you ought to be, by this time; I'm not out to make trouble for you, or for anyone you—er—hold dear.”

“You don't like him, Mr. Gamadge.”

“Compared with his feeling towards me, mine towards him verges on idolatry; but as we both like you, you can't expect too much of us when it comes to admiring each other. I fully respect the priority of his claim, however, although he doesn't think I do.”

“You don't know him, Mr. Gamadge. He never complains; he—”

“Just laughs it off. I know. The trouble is, that system can be carried too far. One mustn't laugh everything off, you know—it's not polite, and it's not safe.”

“He's been so wonderful, and it was all my fault.”

“Don't you cry, now!”

“I'm not going to.”

“How can I get a look at his medicine?”

“Do you really think there may be something wrong with it? You must see it, then, of course. But—”

“But he won't show it to me—he'll tell me to go climb a tree. I should, in his place.”

“He's coming up here after dinner, about eight thirty.”

“Can I get into his flat?”

“I think so. Everybody's always dropping in and waiting for him. It's on the third floor, rear.…I don't like doing this behind his back. Can't I tell him to take the tablets to Schumacher, and have them analyzed?”

“Schumacher is Schildmann's druggist?”

“Yes.”

“The point is to keep this line of inquiry entirely between you and me, for the present. And there's no time to be lost.”

“It's just that I do so hate to take advantage of him.”

“Better than letting somebody else take advantage of him.”

Her eyes met his. “All right, if you say so.”

“Old pals, aren't we, with no nonsense between us.”

“Yes.” She gave him a faint smile.

“I'm going to strain your confidence in me to the utmost. Can your aunt hear me through that door?”

“She's fast asleep.”

“May I shut the hall and bathroom doors?”

“Of course, if you want to.” She watched him blankly as he did so. He came back, sat down, and leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees. The chow dozed; quiet now reigned in the street outside, and a damp east wind suddenly fluttered the white curtains.

“I'm going to tell you something,” said Gamadge. “I won't ask you any questions, and you needn't say a word. Just let me go through with it—no interruptions, if you can help it.

“On Thursday afternoon, at about twelve minutes to five, you drove Cameron Payne downtown as fast as you could, because he wanted to get to the old house before Mr. Vauregard took his afternoon stroll in the garden. He intended to get a picture of Miss Smith, if he could, and you were to wait in the car, around the corner.

“You had been very keen about the idea; in fact, you had tried to sell it to me. But a stranger would have had vast difficulties in getting a snapshot of Miss Smith, whereas Mr. Payne, a privileged party, could lurk in the arbor without fearing to lose reputation if he were discovered there; he could say that he was waiting for you. I refused the job—Payne took it on.

“You drove him down there, and parked in the neighborhood. It was obviously much less risky for one person to get into the arbor unseen, and to get out again, than for two, so he went alone. You saw him on his way between five fifteen and five thirty; I've doped out your route, and you could easily do it in the time, going in that direction at that time of day.

“He left cigarette ash on the arbor bench, which is not important; he also left the hole which his stick made in the ground, just to the left of the entrance. It's a damp corner, there'd been rain, and the impression is perfect. That stick has made impressions on my rug, and if you doubt my sense of dimensions, we can borrow it and go down there and fit it in again. We might even make a cast. I may add that the police haven't found anything in the arbor to interest them; they didn't hear your talk about photography.

“Payne returned to the car at about a quarter to six, in time for you to drive him uptown and leave him near his apartment house by six fifteen. He told you that he didn't get a picture; Miss Smith and Mr. Vauregard hadn't showed up, the day was clouding up again, and it was useless to wait. He said he must try it again.

“You dropped him, and went on for a drive yourself; but it wasn't the interminable drive you are so unsuccessfully trying to convince the police about; you left your car at the garage, parked Sun, and then walked home. You were a little bothered, and your troubles began at my tea party. You couldn't then understand why he had insisted on keeping the scheme from me, and why he was going out of his way to protest sympathy for Miss Smith. He seemed to be doing a lot of unnecessary storytelling, and you couldn't see why. Now, he had made you promise faithfully to say nothing to anybody about this abortive trip to Traders Row.

“When you reached home, or shortly afterwards, you heard that old Mr. Vauregard had been murdered between five and six o'clock, and that Miss Smith had disappeared. You didn't for one moment suspect Cameron Payne of poisoning the old gentleman; you knew why he had gone to Traders Row, and you knew that he wouldn't have taken you along if he had been planning anything worse than photography; besides, of course you knew that he wouldn't do such a thing. But he had been there on the spot, with his camera trained on the house, in full view of the side entrance and the garden door; he had been there during at least half of the crucial time, and probably at the fatal moment. If he didn't see the murderer come and go, if he didn't see Miss Smith go, it was almost a miracle. But he told you that he hadn't—that everything must have occurred before or after he was there.

“You choked on that, but you managed to swallow it. You had something else to swallow, too—he more than ever refused to let you tell about the trip to Traders Row. You wanted to tell, because you and he had valuable information—negative, but valuable—about times. He said it was impossible to hand out the story; you couldn't tell about photographing the zombi, because Mrs. Morton wouldn't release the arbor story; and the police knew that both of you had a motive for killing Mr. Vauregard. He's made you lie up and down to the police, and he expects you to go on the witness stand and perjure yourself.

“I understand your not letting him down; but since Thursday the affair has taken on a different aspect, and you don't like it at all. You have learned that Mr. Vauregard got the cyanide in his second cup of coffee; and you have learned that he could not have died much after half past five o'clock. You know that Payne saw something; but he won't own up, even to you. He won't own up, even though his evidence would clear you both. Why not?

“I don't pause for a reply; I venture the guess that he has told you he is keeping quiet to avoid scandal, and spare the feelings of the family and the memory of the dead.”

Clara had been sitting motionless through all this, her face in shadow. She lifted it, and said: “He didn't see anything; but if he had, that's why he wouldn't tell.”

“Won't burden even you with the awful truth; I guessed right. Well, I haven't gone into the thing to distress you, or to get information out of either of you; I have no questions. I simply told you the story in order to warn you—and him.”

“Warn us?”

“He's taking a risk. That killer whom he's protecting knows that Payne has evidence—”

Clara looked at him in amazement. “He can't know!”

“Take my word for it.” Gamadge returned her look with one of sad affection. “Whoever it was, knows.”

“But how can he? It's impossible!”

“It's not for me to explain; just take my word for it. Payne's life is in danger. Don't cry!”

“I won't.”

“Payne thinks he's safe enough; he isn't, not even for a night. Perhaps you can make him see reason. I don't want to discuss it with him at all—the less I know and say, the better.”

“Cameron isn't afraid of anything.”

“That's the trouble. If he won't climb aboard the raft with us, he won't; it's his own funeral; but I'm going to get you and Miss Vauregard out of this mess, and I'm not wasting sympathy on anybody else, I can tell you.”

“Mr. Gamadge, he didn't see anything.”

“All right, let it go at that. We'll drop the subject. My best regards to your aunt, and tell her not to worry; I'm suspect Number 1. My personnel is so ashamed of me that I can hardly get my meals, and I haven't laid eyes on Harold since yesterday. I haven't a soul to speak up for me except an insurance investigator named Schenck, who looks like a comedian in a variety show. Do you think that will bring a feeble smile to her lips? I hope so. It hasn't had that effect on yours.”

He rose, and they faced each other. She said: “You can joke about it, but Aunt Rob and I are sick about your being dragged into it. She urged you and urged you, and now you're having all this trouble.”

“Tell her to forget it; the case introduced us, and it's well worth my while. I might never have had the pleasure of her acquaintance.”

“I'll tell her.”

They shook hands solemnly, and Gamadge leaned over to rub the chow's enormous furry ears. Then he went downstairs, and sought Durfee until he found him in the little back room called the library.

D
URFEE WAS SITTING
at Mrs. Morton's desk, writing. He looked up. “Get that information?”

“I got some; too busy to bother about alibis.”

Gamadge sat down and laid a slip of paper under Durfee's nose. “Here's a list of remedies, now accessible to us, supplied by Thorwald the druggist to this household during the past week. Mrs. Morton had Pyramidon, I don't know when, and Payne some sleeping medicine, prescribed by Doctor Schildmann and put up by Schumacher. Apart from those, we have:

You know Thorwald and Schumacher?”

“Yes.” Durfee stared.

“The Vauregard doctor, Lestrange? The oculist, Owen?”

“Lestrange was here for Duncannon. Owen I'm not acquainted with.”

“I want to know whether any other drug or medicament of any kind was prescribed or put up for these six people during the past week; and I want to know whether any of these six people have a chronic disease or physical disability of any sort—apart from Cameron Payne's injury.”

Durfee continued to stare.

“These doctors wouldn't supply information to me, and neither would Thorwald or Schumacher. Would they, to you?” asked Gamadge.

“Thorwald and Schumacher would. The doctors might tell me if the answer to the question was in the negative,” said Durfee. “I might have trouble getting positive information out of them.”

“But if they refused to answer, you might safely conclude that there was some disease or disability?”

“I might.”

“Will you get in touch with them immediately—Owen is on West Fifty-ninth Street—and ask them the questions? I'll write them out for you.”

Durfee leaned back, crossed his legs, folded his hands across his diaphragm, and lowered his head. He looked up at Gamadge from under knitted brows. Finally he said: “People can get drugs and remedies from other people besides their regular doctors and druggists.”