Somewhere in the House (6 page)

“The heirs were distraught at first; but my father and mother, knowing my propensity to plod, were amused. They wrote and told the others to leave it to me.

“I of course considered the hunt an indoor sport of the first magnitude, and the fact that I wasn't to be paid”—Gamadge paused here a moment and looked at the end of his cigarette—“didn't dishearten me in the least. The first thing I found, sensibly enough, was her bunch of keys; and I unpacked and repacked her trunks in the attic with the greatest care. I also did a good deal of climbing and ladder work, ripped and pried things up as neatly as I could, and didn't neglect the hints that I had been given by Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes.

“Of course the family row had been conducted over my head, and I thought the hunt was approved on all sides. When I found the coral necklace in the course of my activities I didn't find it in one piece, but in fifty-one pieces; each bead separately; and as I discovered a bead I would place it with some pride in a glass jar on the sitting-room mantel—where Great-aunt Myrtle and I could both look at the results every evening. I shall never forget the curious expression on her face as she sat and gazed at the bloomy growth in the jar.

“Her worst error, poor thing, lay in forgetting that her heart attacks affected me very slightly. She had one or two when she looked at the jar of coral beads, and I was sympathetic; but if she had given up the ghost at my feet I shouldn't naturally have felt guilt or remorse.

“Well, all the things were found. The heirs wanted to give me something really monumental as a reward, but my father and mother wouldn't allow it. They said I had been chosen because I was impartial, and impartial I must remain.”

After a silence Miss Clayborn said in her rough, metallic voice: “Very amusing. But I don't see that it applies to this matter, unless you wish us to believe that Harriet isn't paying you for your services.”

“But even that, if it were a fact,” said Seward's voice in a drawl, “wouldn't prove Mr. Gamadge impartial. Harriet has many friends of all sorts. I don't think any of them would be impartial in a case like this.”

Clayborn's face was still suffused with blood. He said in a growl: “Allsop will say whether any of us is to be allowed to import strangers in an estate matter.”

“But I should ask Mr. Allsop to supervise my labours,” said Gamadge. “Much easier for him to supervise one person than eight.”

“And do you think it would be wise, Uncle Van,” asked Mrs. Leeder, “to take Mr. Allsop into our complete confidence even now?” She added: “After tomorrow, perhaps we can all engage detectives if we like. Regular detectives. But we shouldn't be able to trust them as we can Mr. Gamadge;
he
won't give us away—even to Mr. Allsop.”

Miss Clayborn looked at her for some moments in silence. Then she said in a lower key: “You've been pretty quiet about it, all these years, Harriet.”

“About what, Aunt Cynthia?”

“About your feelings—how you felt towards us all.”

Gavan Clayborn sat with his chin sunk into the folds of his speckled scarf, his hands grasping the arms of his chair. Gamadge thought that ten years before he would have exploded into violent speech and action; now he was too old, and Roberts was too old to back him. But as the front door slammed below, and a commotion shortly followed on the stairs, he said: “Garth will have something to say about it.”

“Garth!” Seward's tone was ironical and weary.

“You needn't keep squashing the boy and belittling him,” said Miss Clayborn, turning her head to scowl at her nephew. “He can't help it if he has a weak chest. All the Clayborns are not robust, as you most certainly ought to know.”

“I was thinking of his mental equipment,” said Seward. “Mine is still functioning at twice his age.”

“There's nothing the matter with Garth's mental equipment,” said Mrs. Leeder, “except laziness and too much alcohol.”

A young man and a young girl rushed into the room, but paused at the sight of the visitor. Mrs. Leeder, with a glance at Gamadge which seemed to him a little guilty, said: “Why, Ena! What became of the party?”

“It wasn't a good party,” said the girl.

“Rotten party,” echoed the young man.

Miss Clayborn took the introduction upon herself. “This, children,” she informed them in a mincing tone, “is a Mr. Henry Gamadge. He's a policeman. Harriet invited him to be here tomorrow to see that none of us pockets those buttons.”

The two stood nonplussed for a moment, and then the girl came forward, her brilliant teeth showing in a broad smile, and offered Gamadge her hand.

“Mr. Gamadge isn't a policeman,” she said. “He's a book detective. I always wanted to meet him. Mr. Gamadge, how's David Malcolm?”

Gamadge, with an enlightened smile at his client, shook hands with Elena Clayborn and said that Malcolm was very well.

“He was the nice boy that came to lunch,” Elena reminded her father. “The one that had the headaches.”

“He doesn't have them now,” said Gamadge. “I'm the one that has them.”

“A charming young man,” said Elena's great-aunt. “Very civilized.”

“Mr. Gamadge is his boss. What did you mean, Great-aunt, about the buttons?”

Elena Clayborn was tall, and had the predominant Clayborn build. Her bright blue eyes were full of sparkling gaiety, and her colour was healthy and high. Luxuriant brown hair curled beneath a small hat that matched her autumn tweeds.

Garth Clayborn now advanced. He did not look like a Clayborn at all; he was below medium height, with narrow shoulders and a narrow chest. His features were small, and he had a sickly skin.

“Yes, what's the joke?” he asked. “Everybody knows that Mr. Gamadge is a great man.”

Gamadge said “Thanks,” laughed, and shook hands with him.

“Did you think we were going to snatch the buttons?” asked Garth, laughing too.

“Mrs. Leeder had the sensible idea that it would simplify matters if one person looked for them—one person at a time.” He added: “I mean, of course, with all the rest of you looking on. I shouldn't take on the job, naturally, unless I could have all of you, and Mr. Allsop, watching
me
. Mrs. Leeder thought a little order and formality might expedite the proceedings.”

Garth cast a somewhat puzzled look—not an amiable one—at Mrs. Leeder; but he said: “Not a bad idea,” and wandered off down the room, while Elena joined her father on his window seat. “Less of a scrimmage,” continued Garth. “The fun will come later, when we're all able to throw the junk out of the windows—the junk we hate most. I'll start with this.” He seized the thick stem of a brass floor-lamp, which was topped by a red shade as big as an umbrella, and heaved one claw leg off the floor. “Many's the time I've barked my shins on it,” he said.

Elena declared loudly: “I'm going to be there when you open the family vault. Garth says I can't.”

“Certainly you can't,” said Garth, setting the lamp down. “You're not in on the clan secrets. You weren't born when Nonie was tombed up.”

“I suppose you were in on it? In your creepers?”

“Perhaps I was. I was a most intelligent child, and I took in a lot that was going on.” He strolled across the room, glanced at the things on a table, came back to the stand at the end of the right-hand sofa, and opened the cover of Sir Arthur Wilson Cribb. He took out a cigarette and lighted it. “You have my permission to be present tomorrow, Mr. Gamadge,” he said, “and if you like you can have a slice of my birthday cake. But if you're going to be here, you'll be required to assist at the exhumation. Bring your own crowbar.”

“You are apparently the man who could not shudder,” replied Gamadge.

“Shudder at Nonie? I look forward to meeting her.”

“Do you think she'll be well preserved,” asked Elena, “or will she crumble into dust like the mummies?”

“And are we going to bury her in the cellar?” asked Garth.

“Children,” said Miss Clayborn, “you are disgusting. You have no decent feelings whatever; but Ena might remember that her father is one of the people whom Harriet suspects of wishing to steal the buttons.”

“As I get it,” said Garth, “Mr. Gamadge is merely going to act as referee.”

“Mrs. Leeder and I,” said Gamadge, sitting down again at his end of the sofa, “are less and less sure that the buttons will prove to be in the sealed room at all.”

“Oh—Aggie Fitch,” said Miss Clayborn.

“And I even produced a theory that she may have returned from time to time and taken the other things that seem to be lost.”

At this there was a pause. Then Garth said abruptly: “If I'd been more than five at the time, I'd have had a thorough search made that evening when the room was sealed. Then there'd be none of this nonsense at all.”

Gavan said shortly: “When we need your opinion on that matter, my boy, we'll ask for it.”

“My opinion is,” said Elena, “that three mysterious men and a boy came and took the emperor's seal and the tea-pot and the mandarin coat. Like
The Moonstone
. They were all stolen goods—
we
had no right to them.”

“Psha,” growled Gavan.

“I like the Fitch idea,” said Seward in his slow way. “I like it very much. Didn't you women think she picked up trifles where she found them—knick-knacks and essences?”

“Her people were a very poor lot,” said Miss Clayborn. “We thought they—or that little girl they brought—picked up things. I dare say they knew very well where Aggie got to.”

“Never did understand how Mother could tolerate the little creature,” muttered Gavan. “But she valued ties of blood.”

“So did the Nagles,” said his sister dryly. “Cousin This and Cousin That. But she made herself useful, Van.”

“Humoured Grandmother too much,” said Seward. “I imagine that if all were known we'd find she was responsible for the wax museum. What a relief to be rid of it.”

Garth had walked the length of the room to the west window. He stood at the left looking out to the street; then he turned. “Leeder wasn't here, was he, when the room was sealed?” He asked it thoughtfully.

“No,” said Mrs. Leeder, casting an angry glance in his direction.

“He's coming along now up the street.”

“Oh, good,” said Elena. “I can't live without my Rolypoly “

She was out of it, Garth didn't seem to care; but Gamadge thought the three elder Clayborns had powers of restraint and recovery to a remarkable degree.

M
RS. LEEDER SAID:
“Rowe called me up about the time he ought to come tomorrow. I asked him to drop in to-day, because I wanted him to know that Mr. Gamadge was going to look for the buttons. I know you're all very angry with me, even Garth, though he pretends to take it so coolly; but you're not to take it out on Rowe Leeder.”

Gavan, sunk in his chair, answered without looking at her: “Do you think we haven't discussed him, Harriet, in connection with those thefts—which you've seen fit to discuss with Mr. Gamadge? We all thought he made off with the button collection.”

“I didn't,” said Elena. “Imagine him taking things and selling them!”

Gavan sat glowering at her. He said: “Needed the money. He got no allowance from your great-grandmother's will; when it was made he had a salary from his firm. Remember that. Gad, the fellow gets all the women. If it hadn't been for your great-aunt Cynthia I wouldn't have allowed him in the house again.”

“He took good care to wait until Harriet's people were dead,” observed Seward. “Ena, I wish you wouldn't keep up this absurd pose of yours; it's perversity. You must always take the other side.”

“Leeder had only been gone a couple of weeks when we sealed the room,” said Gavan. “I never heard of his turning in his latch-key before he left. And he was broke afterwards—somebody at the club says he saw him driving a taxicab. The murder case he was mixed up in shows what kind of company he'd been keeping—even after his marriage.”

Mrs. Leeder said: “You're very moral all of a sudden, Uncle Van—for a Clayborn.”

“We observe the decencies.”

“And Rowe wasn't mixed up in the murder case.”

“Oh, pooh!” said Garth from his distant window. “That alibi. Those three cronies of his would perjure themselves in a minute to keep a classmate and a club member out of the electric chair.”

“And they dropped him afterwards,” said Seward. “Don't forget that.”

“Because there was publicity,” said Mrs. Leeder in a choked voice. “Because that janitor talked to the papers. It was only by an accident that anybody ever knew—”

“Anybody but those friends of his,” said Seward, “and the police. If the police had to choose, which do you think they'd choose as the probable thief in a family—Leeder, or one of the rest of us?”

“That's so unfair,” said Mrs. Leeder. “So unfair.”

“Question of character,” said Gavan. “I'm not talking about the murder; they're always saying that a murderer needn't be any other kind of criminal, though I think that's nonsense. But that woman was mixed up with the underworld, where they'll do anything.”

Garth said: “Well, I never objected to Leeder coming here; he's a valuable fourth at bridge. If I could always have him for a partner I'd never lose.”

Miss Clayborn rose. She said: “It's not for you to object to Rowe Leeder's presence here, Garth; please remember that a sixth of the house and a sixth of the estate belongs to him.”

She toddled from the room on her high heels, as the front door slammed. Garth asked in a lower voice: “What does he do now, anyway? Where does he live? Anybody know? Do you know, Harriet?”