Postmark Murder (26 page)

“She came here! She must have read the newspapers. She knew where to find me.”

“She already knew your name and telephone number. It wouldn’t be hard to find your address. But you are the only person who saw her here. Now, mind you, I don’t say that she didn’t come here to see you, but you do realize that we have only your word for it. Only your word about the kitten. Only your word about some mysterious stranger following you in the park.”

“It’s true, Lieutenant.”

“I don’t say it isn’t true. I don’t say these things didn’t happen. Also, I think it perfectly possible that anybody who was intent upon killing you—and that is the theory that you expect me to accept—killing you with a lethal dose of sedative
would
select the thermos that had coffee and milk in it, rather than the one with chocolate. It would be an obvious conclusion that the thermos of chocolate was meant for Jonny and the other one for you. But if that’s true, if someone is trying to kill you, why? Can you tell me that?”

Oddly she could not really accept that premise herself. Murder was for the newspapers; it happened to other people; it couldn’t happen to her. Perhaps everyone felt that deep instinctive conviction. Yet in another way, a curious, physical way, she did acknowledge her own jeopardy, for a kind of chill lethargy seemed to envelop her. That was fear. Matt had said it; fear is a paralysis.” She said, “I don’t know.”

He watched her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said, “Of course, there are not very many people who would know of your custom about the thermos bottle. Mrs. Stanley might know it, did she?”

“Perhaps, perhaps, but Doris—”

“Stedman, would he know about it? Cosden?”

Again she said, “Perhaps. Yes.”

“All right,” he said, “who else would know it?”

Who else, indeed? She said slowly, “You said that anybody might have guessed.”

“Well, that’s true. But how would anyone have known that there would be any place, say, for him to deposit a lethal dose of sedative? Wouldn’t anybody be running rather a risk, in the first place, to enter this apartment and then just hope to find some means by which he could induce you to take a sedative?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. Doris, Charlie, Matt. By no stretch of the imagination could she vision one of them working the latch on the door, creeping into the kitchen, trying to murder her. Lieutenant Peabody was watching her as if he could read her thoughts. He said,
“Why,
Miss March?
Why
would anybody try to murder you? Don’t talk of the Brown woman. I realize that you saw her and could identify her, but the landlady could identify her, too, and there have been no attempts to murder the landlady. And there’s another thing. These mysterious calls you say you had. Telephone calls where nobody answered. Have you had more such telephone calls?”

“No.”

“You’re sure that no man’s voice spoke to you in Polish, like the voice which spoke to Stedman?”

“Nobody said anything. Lieutenant Peabody, could the man who phoned to Charlie that morning when I was at Koska Street with you, could that have been Stanislowski? I mean—”

“The man you don’t believe is Stanislowski? I considered that. I asked Stedman: In his opinion it was not the same voice. Stanislowski said he arrived in this city only this afternoon. I asked him if he had made a long distance call from New Orleans. He said, no. We can check that—” The door buzzer sounded sharply. Laura rose mechanically. “Wait, Miss March. What did that murdered man tell you? Why did you believe that he was Stanislowski ? If there’s anything you know you’d be well advised to tell me—”

“There isn’t anything!” she cried. “There isn’t anything I can tell you!” She went into the hall and opened the door, and it was Charlie Stedman. He put down his coat and his hat neatly on top of it. “I thought we better have a little talk about Stanislowski,” he said, and then saw Lieutenant Peabody. “Oh, Lieutenant Peabody. Any news?”

“Not since I saw you,” Lieutenant Peabody said flatly. “It’s been only a few minutes.”

Charlie sat down. “Of course but—look here, Peabody, Stanislowski’s arrival simplifies the thing, doesn’t it? The murdered man must have been an impostor. Surely, somehow, you can identify him.”

“We haven’t yet. Stedman, I’ve been talking to Miss March about alibis. We can’t get around the fact that all four people who are directly concerned with the Stanislowski fund were admittedly in the vicinity last night when this poor woman was murdered.”

“That doesn’t prove any of us murdered her, does it, Lieutenant?”

“Almost the same situation is true of the afternoon when the first claimant to the Stanislowski fortune was found murdered.”

Charlie shrugged. “Unfortunately, yes. Except, of course, for Mrs. Stanley.”

“What about you, Stedman? Have you thought of anybody at all who saw you the afternoon that man was killed?”

Charlie’s face tightened wryly, as if he had tasted something unexpectedly sour. “No,” he said. “I went to my club—the doorman in the elevator saw me. I took a nap and read awhile, then I went down again and I’m sure they saw me then, too, got out my car and went to the factory. I got there late, after everybody had gone. I’ve told you all this, Lieutenant. I made a statement and signed it to that effect.”

“There’s a side entrance to your club and a back stairway. No doorman there.”

“Peabody, believe me, if I had been intending to murder anybody I’d have fixed myself an alibi.”

“That’s a little harder to do than you seem to think. Do you have any doubts at all about this second man’s identity?”

“Stanislowski?” Charlie considered it deliberately. “No,” he said finally. “I can’t say that I do. You saw his papers just now. You heard his story. You weren’t there when the child recognized him, but she did recognize him. There’s no doubt about that. We’ll have to check on him, and that’s going to take some time. As a matter of fact it may prove to be impossible. I don’t see how we can do it from the Polish end; he’s admittedly escaped from Poland. This cargo ship’s a problem, too; I doubt if the ship’s officers will admit that they took on a man without proper papers—particularly if they think there may be trouble, inquiry, that sort of thing. It’s going to be a very awkward affair all around. I never approved of this will.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing it was not fair to Mrs. Stanley. Conrad Stanley had never so much as seen this nephew. I could understand his motive but I really didn’t think it was fair to Mrs. Stanley. In a way I didn’t think it was fair to Laura, either. She had been like a daughter to Stanley for many years. I really felt that he ought to have provided for her.”

“He did provide for me,” Laura said. “He couldn’t have been more generous. He
was
like a father to me! He educated me. He gave me something nobody can take away from me, a way to earn my own living.”

Lieutenant Peabody gave her a curious glance, as if he doubted her sincerity; she thought, how noble that sounds, how pretentious; yet it’s all true.

Charlie said dryly, “Nevertheless I thought that Conrad ought to have left you a sum of money outright. Of course, he knew that there was a very strong chance that his nephew would never turn up and that, therefore, you would have a sizable sum of money. Doris would have her third of it. I would have a third, too. You’d have had to know Conrad Stanley to understand him, Peabody. All this, his will, and what we assume to be his motives, are comprehensible to anyone who knew Conrad.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Lieutenant Peabody said shortly. “You said you disapproved of the will.”

“I did disapprove of it. I didn’t think it quite fair to his wife or to Laura and I didn’t think it was a sensible thing to do. I thought it was going to be a tiresome business. It seemed to me the kind of thing that any good legal adviser would have strongly advised Conrad Stanley against. I thought it invited trouble—and I was right. However, this is the way things have worked out. Jonny is here and she is undoubtedly Conrad Stanislowski’s child. So therefore it is our duty to carry out the provision of the will.”

“And you agree, Stedman, that this fund should be turned over to Jonny to be continued until she is of age? Or rather did you agree to it before this man arrived this afternoon?”

Again Charlie paused to consider the question and all its angles. Then he said, “I’ll be frank with you, Lieutenant. I did agree and I didn’t. Mrs. Stanley is a little against it; you can see her point of view. She still feels that it was unfair to her. I can sum up my own opinion this way: if Mrs. Stanley and Miss March agreed to continue the fund, then I would have agreed to it. I rather think —” He paused for a moment and looked at Laura. “You’re not going to like this, Laura. But I rather think if Doris had held out strongly against it, I would have been a little inclined to be on her side. She was Conrad’s wife. However, no matter what the decision was I would be in favor of taking care of Jonny. I’m sure that’s what Conrad would have wanted us to do. I’m not sure that I would be in favor of giving Jonny this very large sum. You, Laura, are determined to have it continued for Jonny.”

“Yes,” Laura said, “Conrad would have wanted it.”

Charlie nodded. “Perhaps you are right,” he said equably. “In any event this discussion is beside the point now. Conrad Stanislowski is here. We’ll have to do everything we can to confirm his claims. But in my opinion, there’s really no question of his identity. And in the meantime—I know how you feel about this, Laura, too, but I feel that we’ll have to let him have the child. It’s the only humane and sensible thing to do. They’ve been separated for two years. He loves her, she’s his child.”

“No! Charlie, please. Not yet. Let’s wait.”

Peabody said abruptly, “Where were you, Stedman, the afternoon following the Koska Street murder?”

“Where—” Charlie looked startled. Then he gave a short laugh. “Another alibi? I think—yes, I’m sure I was at my club again. It’s getting to be a habit with my approaching age; I usually go to my room after lunch and rest. The doorman in the elevator must have seen me but, of course,” Charlie said with an edge to his voice, “as you have pointed out, there’s a side entrance. However, I assure you I didn’t follow Laura and Jonny, if that’s what you’re getting at. If I wanted to see them all I had to do is come up here and ring the bell!”

“Was it Stedman, Miss March?” Peabody asked imperturbably. “Was it Cosden?”

“No! That is—I told you—I couldn’t see his face but—”

“Was it by any chance Stanislowski?”

S
TANISLOWSKI, LAURA THOUGHT
. If he had arrived in Chicago before he said he had arrived, he could have found her address and then attached himself to her and Jonny as they left the apartment. She said slowly, “I’m not sure. It might have been, but—”  She tried to dredge up same salient and distinguishing feature from her memory of that ubiquitous figure. It remained only the shadowy, distant shape of a man. “I don’t know.”

Lieutenant Peabody turned to Stedman. “I asked you if you thought it could have been Stanislowski who talked to you on the phone the morning when Miss March went out with us to the rooming house.”

“And I answered you, Lieutenant Peabody,” Charlie said. “I don’t think it was the same man. You heard him. He flatly denies it.”

Lieutenant Peabody turned back to Laura, “That’s all that happened? He didn’t approach you, didn’t speak to you. You just saw a man who took the same route you took around the park.”

“Yes,” Laura said, “but he—he was always there, wherever we went. And then I thought he was in a taxi that followed us.”

“Did you see him clearly?”

“No, no—there was just a figure in the back seat.”

“So you aren’t at all sure that anybody followed you?”

“Yes,” Laura said defiantly.

But it sounded weak even to her own ears. There was a short but skeptical silence. Then abruptly Peabody rose and started for the hall, picking up his coat and hat as he went. At the door, however, he paused. “Miss March, when you make up your mind to tell me exactly why you are so sure that the first man was Stanislowski—let me know,” he said almost solemnly and went away.

Charlie had followed him to the door. He said, “Good night,” closed the door and came back. Laura could almost see his astute mind leaping like quicksilver to the exact meaning of the Lieutenant’s words. He sat down, however, in a leisurely way. He settled his neat tie; he took a cigarette from the little silver dish on the table beside him and lighted it. Finally he said, “Peabody believes that murdered man was still alive when you got there. What
did
he say to you before he died?”

“He was dead. I told the police that.”

The Lieutenant had not believed her. Neither, she realized suddenly, did Charlie. He said quietly, “Laura, you were obstinate about Stanislowski this afternoon. You took the child away. You refuse to let him have her. That’s not like you. He has not had an easy time, that’s clear. Reunion with his child must have been his goal, his dream, his hope. I am cautious; I’m not easy to convince; I’m aware of my responsibility to Jonny and to Conrad Stanley. I think he should have the child now. We can straighten out all the details later.”

“No—”

“You must have some reason for refusing.”

She had none, nothing that would convince him or anybody. She said desperately, “Charlie, if I knew anything—anything at all, I’d tell the police.”

Charlie considered that, too, deliberately, and again he didn’t believe her. “Maybe,” he said, “maybe not. You are usually a very reasonable young woman, Laura. Remember, I’ve known you since you were a little girl. I’ve known you better since we’ve shared this rather onerous chore. I’ve always thought you were a very level-headed young woman. I don’t think you’d do anything without a reason. It’s possible that you may have some notion of trying to solve this thing yourself. I don’t really believe that, I think you are too smart. But there is something that you’re not telling anybody.”

“No.”

“Then why are you so determined not to give up the child? You must believe that this first man was Stanislowski in spite of  everything. And your whole attitude is—different, Laura. I don’t understand it. Of course, you may realize that an accusation of murder is a very serious thing. So you may have some notion of trying to prove something, yourself, before you tell the police.”