Murders in, Volume 2 (27 page)

October sunlight flooded the library; Miss Vauregard, who sat beside an open window, lifted her pale but composed face to it, and pushed her veil back from her forehead.

“What happened,” she said, “was the best thing for him, and for us all.”

“But I never meant Schenck to know anything about Payne, and his moving pictures. I was doing my best to keep Payne out of it.”

“Do you think Clara doesn't know that?”

“It looks as if I—”

“Clara isn't imagining horrors about you, Henry.”

“Everything was going all right, it was only Smith's word against his that he was blackmailing Vauregard; and then Schenck had to get up on the witness stand and describe that scene in the street! I couldn't ask him to keep quiet about it; and the miserable fellow thought he was doing me a favor. He got on to me, somehow—confound those sharp wits of his.”

“I'm glad I didn't have to be there in court, that day. From what I can gather, Cameron managed to come out of it all pretty well.”

“He's magnificent in the witness box, and part of his story luckily happened to be true; all that about taking the picture of Miss Smith to save Clara's family's money. And then he was so frank and pathetic about the rest of it—how he had to suppress the evidence in order to spare the feelings of Miss Vauregard and Miss Dawson; I'm perfectly certain that half the people in the courtroom were convinced he never tried out the blackmail at all, and that he was the victim of a plot.”

“People just think what they want to think.”

“I suppose Clara will never get over it.”

“Don't forget that she never was in love with Cameron Payne; and ever since that Thursday, she had been sure that there was something queer going on about the pictures. What exactly did he get?”

“He got a movie of Dick arriving, and going into the house by the garden door. Then he got a sequence—Miss Smith coming out in her seven-dollar coat, and dashing away; old Mr. Vauregard and Dick at the library window; and then Dick coming out and planting the ephedrine bottle in the fountain. He dug under the geraniums, you know, and shoved it down the old pipe. They had to tear the thing to pieces to get it out. Look here, Miss Vauregard, must you really talk it over? I'm not sure that you ought.”

“I'm used to it, by this time.”

“Payne swore that he had seen the error of his ways, and was going to hand the film over to the police that very night, and only gave it up to Vauregard because he would have been killed on the spot if he hadn't. There had been no time for him to develop the pictures, with cops all over his place at all hours. Of course he had brought it along with him to scare Vauregard. He thought he was perfectly safe while the Morton house was guarded, and I suppose he was going to put the camera in his safe-deposit box. I warned him that Vauregard could get out, but he chose to think that I was making a fool of myself, and that I was talking about Duncannon. He enjoyed our conversation very much.”

“He's been a strange, desperate creature ever since his accident. Clara would have died, or gone mad, living with him; but it took this blackmail story to make her give him up.”

“I bet lots of people will think she's very hard-hearted. I knew she'd never stand a racket.”

“Well, she won't have to worry about him; he's getting a fresh start among the best people. Miss Dykinck met me on the street, the other day—very aloof and condescending. I don't need Rose Dykinck,” said Miss Vauregard, faintly smiling, “to tell me that as a family we can never hold up our heads again.”

“I must say I like her nerve! I ought to tell her that you hold her in the hollow of your hand!”

“Oh, don't, she'd make away with herself; I mean, she really might!”

“You bet she might. I had to go very easy with Miss Dykinck.”

“She told me that people don't understand Cameron Payne, and that he's the most spiritual human being she ever knew.”

“I do hope she isn't going to let him in of an evening by the area gate; he might dig up some information about Byron—I got Volumes I and III back to her, by the way; pasted the flyleaf in again. Nobody ever noticed them, down there in Traders Row. But I dare say Volume II is at the bottom of the East River.”

“Even if Cameron Payne did find out about the Byrons, he can't very well blackmail the Dykincks, poor things.”

“Well, I understand that they still have their Newport cottage.”

“And Rose won't have to let him in by the area gate; he is received by Mrs. Dykinck.”

“No!”

“He's teaching her to take moving pictures out of her front sitting-room window.”

At this Gamadge laughed so uproariously that Miss Vauregard finally laughed a little, too. She said: “I do wish we knew what was in that letter of Cornelia's to Deken!”

“I have my unalterable opinion about that. It told Cornelia's dearest Dykinck all about Miss Wagoneur's elopement with your Great-grand-uncle Charles.”

“There never was a single word of suspicion against Great-grand-uncle Charles!”

“No, he was in Albany. I bet you anything that Miss Lydia Wagoneur joined him there.”

“That's a safe bet, I must say!”

“And that your respected ancestors, knowing Charles, and therefore knowing how the affair would be sure to turn out, kept it dark—for a hundred years, too. But they couldn't fool a Dykinck!”

“Poor Miss Wagoneur. I hope they're not going to be too hard on that Magnus girl, Mr. Gamadge.”

“I doubt that they will be. She turned back into Miss Smith, in court, and got the benefit of the doubt every time. Now she's even appealing the criminal conspiracy charge; thought it was just a family game, to humor an old gentleman, and did what her husband asked her to. But you know all that.” He glanced sharply at Miss Vauregard. “Who better?”

“Who better, Mr. Gamadge?”

“She had Loveman—the most expensive defense counsel now living. Who's paying for him?”

“Tom Duncannon; but that's a secret.”

“It had better be!”

“He always liked her; and nobody thinks she knew anything about either of those murders.” Miss Vauregard faced him, her eyes veiled.

“I bet you're financing her, or helping to.”

“Nonsense.”

“Of course you are! Duncannon isn't the sort to part with any such sum as that must be, even for his ideal woman.”

“Mr. Gamadge, she was Dick's wife. And he heard nothing talked about but money, all his life. Angela tried to control him too much. His father…I knew he was going the wrong way, ever so long ago. He didn't care for any of us; I suppose that's why we couldn't care more for him. He was fond of that girl—it's the least I can do…Well, I must go. Clara will be waiting. She's going to drive me down to pick up those tickets for New Mexico.”

“Isn't she coming up?” Gamadge looked horribly disappointed.

“I'll see. No, I won't have you going down. You know Theodore will be hovering.”

Miss Vauregard stepped into the elevator. Gamadge returned to the library and stood facing the door, his hands in his pockets and a tenseness about his general attitude. There was a short interval of silence, and then a tremendous outburst of barking. A yellow animal resembling a cat, but with the tail of a raccoon, shot into the room and sprang from a table to the mantelpiece. A bronze jug and two ashtrays clattered to the floor.

Gamadge ignored all this. The barking ceased, and presently Clara came in, out of breath, her eyes wide and apprehensive.

“Mr. Gamadge,” she asked, “What are we going to do about the animals?”

“Animals.” Gamadge looked at her, for the moment completely stumped.

“Yes. We can't teach them to get on together—they're too old.”

“Oh, I see. Er—I don't cart mine about with me, much. We could leave them at home.”

“Yes; but I thought…sometimes…we might—”

Gamadge stepped forward and took her face between his hands. “We will, Clara! We will.”

“I thought I could learn to help Harold in the laboratory.” Clara did not seem to find Gamadge's gesture unusual.

“Or you could help Athalie in the kitchen.”

“Or I could help you to detect.”

“In the library. If I ever detect again, of course; I thought you and I might both have had enough of it, for a while.”

“I know I'm awful.”

“Ruthless; that's the way detectives ought to be. Well, you've detected me, all right; so let's tell Miss Vauregard to go down and get the tickets herself, and an extra one for me. I'm going too.”

 

All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.

MURDERS IN VOLUME 2

A Felony & Mayhem “Vintage” mystery

PUBLISHING HISTORY

First U.S. print edition (Farrar & Rinehart): 1941
Felony & Mayhem print edition: 2005
Felony & Mayhem electronic edition: 2012

Copyright © 1941 by Elizabeth Daly
Copyright renewed 1971 by Frances Daly Harris, Virginia Taylor,
Eleanor Boylan, Elizabeth T. Daly, and Wilfrid Augustin Daly, Jr.

All rights reserved

E-book ISBN: 978-1-937384-19-7

 

 

You're reading a book in the Felony & Mayhem “Vintage” category. These books were originally published prior to about 1965, and feature the kind of twisty, ingenious puzzles beloved by fans of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr. If you enjoy this book, you may well like other “Vintage” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press.

“Vintage” titles available as e-books:

The Poisoned Chocolates Case
, by Anthony Berkeley

The
“Henry Gamadge”
series, by Elizabeth Daly

The
“Roderick Alleyn”
series, by Ngaio Marsh

“Vintage” titles available as print books:

The
“Albert Campion”
series, by Margery Allingham

The
“Gervase Fen”
series, by Edmund Crispin

For more about these books, and other Felony & Mayhem titles, please visit our website:

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