Somewhere in the House (11 page)

“That would be a mistake,” said Gamadge, looking astonished.

“You bet it would. You're a witness, not a pal. Keep that in your head. Mrs. Leeder is still your client, luckily for her.”

“Luckily? Because I found Cribb in that bookcase over there?”

“That's why.”

“She wouldn't thank me for keeping the murder in the family, would she?”

“You've put it on somebody that didn't discuss Cribb with you, and that ought to suit her. About Leeder, there's one thing in
his
favour. The Sillerman woman was shot.”

Gamadge blinked, and then said: “So she was.”

“It's not much to go on, because amateurs don't always repeat methods the way professionals or crackpots like to do; and besides, the Fitch murder may not have been planned in advance. But it was premeditated.”

“Was it?”

“You bet it was; part of my little surprise for you. So was the Sillerman murder premeditated—a .38 calibre revolver isn't usually carried around in people's clothes. They never found that gun, of course, but they have the bullet still. Case was never closed, you know. They're sending up the files for me to look at.”

“One more thing in Leeder's favour,” said Gamadge with a smile. “Mere trifle. He had an alibi.”

“Yes—three friends. I wasn't old enough to be in the Department then.”

“You'd have gone pretty carefully into that alibi?”

“I don't say it wasn't gone into. Anyhow, I'd like to see those files.”

“I'd like to see them myself.”

“Remind me.” Nordhall leaned back in his chair. “Seward Clayborn, now—not so good. He'd know where to find a market for that collection of buttons, knows all kinds of art people. I wish I knew whether there ever were buttons in that music room. Miss Clayborn had some sort of a story of yours about finding coral beads in fifty-one places.”

Gamadge laughed. “I was just calming them down, so that they wouldn't make too much of a row about my coming to-day.”

“Yes, and I have a couple of questions to ask you about that. And I'd like to know what their reactions were when the body was discovered. All you say is they acted naturally.”

“They did. They acted according to their characters.”

“One of them had twenty years' practice. Want to know something?”

“Very much.”

“If you hadn't been there they'd have buried Fitch in the cellar with the waxwork, and said nothing about it.”

“They'd have had to bury Allsop too.”

“If you hadn't been there, and Allsop hadn't been told about the buttons, he mightn't have gone into the music room at all. He mightn't have seen the body if he had gone in—somebody would have got in there first and covered it up.”

“Roberts? And how about Miss Elena Clayborn?”

“Roberts—I'm leaving him out of this, there isn't a thing on his mind but shock—Roberts wouldn't have known a thing about the Fitch body. They'd have told him never mind, they'd get rid of the wax figure in the cellar. They'd have told Mrs. Leeder and the girl the same. They'd have managed it somehow, those five; think they'd stick at it? Pass by a chance to avoid all this trouble and publicity? Think they'd rather have a murder case in the family, about somebody like Fitch who was killed twenty years ago?”

“I don't know what they would have done.”

“I bet those five wouldn't have hesitated. Not Garth Clayborn—the way he impresses me. He wasn't in on the Fitch murder, but he's tough. What I'm wondering is, what kind of a person could live in the house all this time and know there was a dead woman up there, and stay sane waiting for her to be found? I don't think anybody could stand it and stay sane. If it wasn't Leeder, there's a brain here with a kink in it.

“Now we'll have Mrs. Leeder down, but first I'd like to know why she thought somebody was going to steal those buttons. It isn't the kind of thing a lady usually gets into her head about her family.”

“That's the question you wanted to ask me, is it?”

“That and another. Why didn't these people make more of a row about your coming to-day? Not because you told them a story involving a coral necklace.”

“One answer will do for both questions; but I'd prefer to have you get the answer from Mrs. Leeder.”

“What makes you think she'll tell me?”

“She's not a fool; she knows that all kinds of things have to come out in a murder case.”

Nordhall got up, went to the door, and spoke to someone in the hall. Then he came back and wrapped the wax head in the newspapers. He tossed the bundle to the window seat, where Gamadge was now kneeling on one knee and looking out at the dusky garden. A servants' wing projected to the right, cutting off any view of the premises on that side of the house.

Nordhall, standing at the table, said: “We'll never solve this case. People like these don't give one another away.”

A police sergeant came to the door, stood aside, allowed Mrs. Leeder to pass him, and waited.

“All right, Crowley,” said Nordhall. “No notes on this.”

The sergeant withdrew; Mrs. Leeder remained where she was, pale and quiet as a ghost. She was wearing a short black dress in which she looked less tall and less mature than she had looked the day before. She asked: “Don't you always take everything down, Lieutenant Nordhall?”

“Not always. This is going to be off the record, Mrs. Leeder. If we can't use your information I'll forget it.” He came forward and turned a comfortable chair so that she could face him in it when he sat down. “Just relax,” he said. “You're only going to help us clear things up a little.”

But she stayed as she was, looking at him. After a moment she said: “Rowe Leeder's name got into the papers once—by accident. It ruined his life and mine.”

“You don't want to blame the Department for that, Mrs. Leeder. You can trust me, and you can trust Mr. Gamadge.”

She turned her head slowly to address Gamadge: “I don't—I really don't know how you can ever forgive me for dragging you into this.”

“I don't matter.”

She sat down, Nordhall sat down, and Gamadge settled on the window seat.

“Now first of all,” said Nordhall, his arms on the table, his manner friendly and informal, “I want to know—just between ourselves, if it has nothing to do with the case—why you thought one of your family might be fixing it to steal buttons out of that sealed room.”

“Hasn't Mr. Gamadge told you that?”

“No, he left it up to you.”

“Other things were stolen from the house—things of value.”

“Don't say. When?”

“Within the last ten years. The last thing—there were only three—went a few years ago.”

“What things?”

“A Chinese seal, a tea-pot, and a mandarin robe.”

Nordhall, looking at her steadily, tapped the fingers of one hand on the table. He asked: “Whose were they?”

“They were part of the estate. It wouldn't have done to tell anybody—tell Mr. Allsop. Even now—”

“He won't hear about it from me if it isn't necessary to tell him. I don't like these restrictive clauses in wills—they make a lot of trouble.”

Mrs. Leeder said: “Oh, yes, you know about the will.”

“I know about it, of course. All about it—how you had to keep that wax figure in the house with you. There's a lot of spite in wills like that. Well, I can see why the family couldn't complain when you called in Mr. Gamadge.”

“If they'd refused to let him come, I was ready to tell Mr. Allsop and risk it. But I must confess,” said Mrs. Leeder, a bitter smile on her lips, “that I knew I shouldn't have to take that risk.”

“You were afraid the same party that took the other things might have a try for those buttons?”

“Or for anything else of value that might be there. It seems very small of me now, doesn't it? It's hard to make people understand the strength of these feelings that develop among relatives. And we had to live together so much of the time.”

Nordhall sat back and looked pensive. “I'd say there was a screw loose somewhere, Mrs. Leeder. Didn't that ever worry you?”

“You mean you think one of us was
mad
?”

“Or still is. They might have inherited it. Your grandmother, now: I don't care what the doctors say, they're too technical; a good many sensible people would say she was crazy or near it, fixing up that wax figure and having it sit there playing the piano; making arrangements so that you'd all have to keep it there until 1944.”

“But all that developed in Grandmother after Nonie died.”

“It did develop, though. This Nonie—was
she
all there—living like a dummy before there was a dummy? No life of her own?”

“Just a passive, weak-willed person, I supposed.”

“What I'm getting at, there might be some mental weakness handed down, something that took a bad form and culminated in violence—the Fitch murder.”

“I never saw any sign of it.”

“Mr. Seward Clayborn—moody kind of individual.”

“There are so many moody individuals, Lieutenant Nordhall.”

“Well, if you can't help me along that line, you might be able to help me along another. I want you to think back to the day of your grandmother's funeral.”

“Do you think”—she spoke as if in desperation—“do you really think I've been doing anything else since that room was opened?”

“That's good. I want you to tell me what everybody did and where they went when you all came back from the funeral.”

“Mr. Allsop—”

“I know; he had a sort of combined statement ready for us when we came, poor old boy. But he wasn't here himself until that night after dinner when you sealed the room, and I'm glad to say we've decided to send him home.”

“Thank Heaven. He was looking dreadful. He really was splendid, I never saw such control; but the thing nearly killed him.”

“So I thought. Well, you all gave him something to give us, but what does it amount to? Nobody knows where anybody was that afternoon between five o'clock and dinnertime. Nobody saw anything. What I'd like is your individual recollection of that afternoon, and let's do it this way: questions and answers. Something might come out of it—you'd be surprised.”

N
ORDHALL STACKED UP
his papers, placed the cardboard box on top of them, reached forward, and opened the Cribb solander. He passed it to Mrs. Leeder, who took a cigarette out of it without comment and mechanically.

Nordhall lighted it for her, and one for himself.

“Now, I know how hard all this must be on you, Mrs. Leeder,” he said, “but I know the kind of sport you are. When you made up your mind that you weren't going to have any more valuable property snatched from under your nose, you acted like a sport—you weren't too scared of these people to send for Mr. Gamadge. Has he told you he was afraid he mightn't be let in to-day?”

“No.” She turned her face towards Gamadge, and frowned a little. “I haven't seen him to talk to since he came.”

“He's a man of experience, and the situation scared
him
. But he knew you were all set for opposition, so he followed your injunction and didn't speak to me or to his lawyer. Of course he was prepared to find the Fitch woman's body in the sealed room.”

“That never entered my mind. Perhaps I was stupid, but it's hard to imagine—”

“It is. Well, as I was saying: some women would be shut up in their room by now, doctor sent for, aspirin out, somebody fanning them.”

“Nobody is fanning my Aunt Cynthia.”

“No; but Mr. Seward Clayborn is lying down on his bed, and his daughter won't allow the police to ask him any more questions till he's got over his headache.”

“Seward has nervous headaches very often.”

“What I mean is, you evidently don't have them. You have a lot of mental stamina. I won't pretend that there isn't going to be anything unpleasant for you in the quiz we're going to have; but you'll understand that the unpleasantness has got to be there. First of all, I want to explain to you why we're pretty sure that there's a smart, callous, cold-blooded murderer in this house right now. Somebody didn't just stroll in that afternoon twenty years ago and kill the Fitch woman for what she had on her or to keep her mouth shut; the Nagles, or any other friends of hers, are about as thin a proposition as could be.

“The murderer's here in this house; and we mustn't go wrong about who it is.”

“No,” said Mrs. Leeder. “That mustn't be.”

“You're determined to prevent it if you can, I see that much. Well: about our evidence. In the first place”—he picked up the Cribb solander and held it in front of her—“doesn't this thing belong upstairs?”

“Yes, I think it does.” She looked surprised. “There are several.”

“How many?”

“This, and one in the reception-room, and one that I think was usually kept down here.”

Nordhall showed her
A Season in the Cotswolds
. “This?”

“Yes. There was another that we had in the sitting-room, somebody's poems. It wore out or fell to pieces.”

“But this was, as a usual thing, in the sitting-room—this Cribb?”

“Yes, it's a good colour for the sitting-room.”

“How did you and Mr. Seward Clayborn pick them, Mrs. Leeder? I mean who decided that they'd make good cigarette boxes, and wouldn't be missed as books?”

“There were a lot of books of Grandfather's that had something wrong with them, but nice bindings. Seward had seen these cigarette boxes in some decorator's shop, and he asked Uncle Gavan whether he and I couldn't make solanders out of those imperfect books.”