Somewhere in the House (8 page)

“She went home. Mrs. Gamadge couldn't get a fourth for bridge, and it wouldn't be any fun for her to stick around, just talking.”

“Oh, wouldn't it?”

G
AMADGE, WALKING ALONG
the Clayborns' street on the following afternoon, reflected that it would probably be no quieter twelve hours hence, at 3 a.m. on Monday morning, than it was now. By five o'clock exhausted people would be pushing baby carriages through from the Park, children of the East Side would be straggling home; now the sun warmed empty pavements, not a car stood at either kerb.

He paused to look up at the bricked window. He now knew that Nonie sat beyond it in the dark, at her piano. He wondered how close to madness old Mrs. Clayborn had been when she called that image into being, while she sat alone beside it through the years. Could she have survived those vigils without at last coming to believe that there was more to her companion than sawdust and wax?

He thought that the will had been based on some such unrecognized delusion. Mrs. Clayborn had made her favourite child live on, surrounded by her treasures. It must have taken courage to rob her, with her mother only just laid in the grave.

He went along to the front steps, mounted them, and rang. Yesterday's impressions had faded, he was no longer apprehensive enough to feel relief when Roberts invited him in. Roberts looked a little solemn, as if a funeral might be going to take place instead of a disinterment.

He said: “If you would just step into the reception room, Sir, before you go up. Mr. Allsop would like to speak to you.” He placed Gamadge's things on an oak chest, and led the way to an arched doorway on the right.

Gamadge entered the grand, faded, dim-lit apartment, beyond which could be seen through an arch a great, shining, oval dinner table. Afternoon light fell upon the long expanse of Aubusson carpet, upon the folds of green brocade at the windows, the malachite mantel, the gilt cabinets. There was a concert-grand piano here, there was a portrait above the chimney piece.

Mr. Allsop got up from a small sofa to the left of the fireplace, and advanced a few steps across the scrolls and garlands beneath his feet. He was a dry little old man, but there was alertness in the pale old eyes behind his pince-nez.

He put out a small, dry hand. “Mr. Gamadge?”

“Mr. Allsop.”

“We might sit down.”

They faced each other from opposite sides of the tiled hearth. At the end of Gamadge's sofa there was the inevitable stand, this one gilt with a malachite top; and on it was a vellum-bound royal-octavo volume, which Gamadge eyed knowingly. Its red edges had certainly been glued together. He smiled, lifted the cover, glanced within, and asked Mr. Allsop if he smoked gold-tipped cigarettes.

Mr. Allsop looked benignly at the solander. He said: “Very clever. Very ingenious.”

“But poor old Dante, though.” Gamadge, holding the box shut, examined its spine. “
Divine Comedy, III
. I hope it was an odd volume. I must ask Mrs. Leeder if Hell or Purgatory is missing.”

“Would she know?”

“She and Mr. Seward Clayborn used to make these things.”

“Oh, then it would be an odd volume. Or pages would have been out. Seward is not the man to destroy a valuable book. I know them all.” He observed Gamadge through his glasses, lifting his chin to get a good view of the other's features. “A wonderful family. My father first brought me here when I was quite a child; I was allowed to play in the garden. A Paradise, I thought it,” he said, smiling at the cigarette box. “Quite a Paradise. We had the usual brownstone, with our laundry drying in the yard.”

“I suppose this house was brighter then; before the apartments went up across the street.”

“Brighter in every way,” said Mr. Allsop. “Spacious living, contacts—” He got out his handkerchief and tapped the end of his nose with it. “Contacts,” he repeated, putting the handkerchief away, “all over the world. Distinguished company. Lavish hospitality.” He peered up at the portrait above the mantel; a handsome blonde woman who looked obstinate.

“Didn't do her justice,” said Mr. Allsop. “The fellow didn't get her at all. Fashionable man then, they tell me he's gone out of fashion since. Mrs. Clayborn was a woman of great charm and character, but she had losses. Not financial losses, I am glad to say; she escaped all that. Her great pride was the Quartette, and I have tried to watch her posthumous interests. I—er—took the liberty of looking you up, Mr. Gamadge, as well as I could in the short time at my disposal, after Mrs. Leeder telephoned me yesterday evening.”

“I'm glad she did that.”

“She—er—had a reference; a Mr. Macloud. Mr. Robert Macloud. There is no better trial lawyer in town.”

Gamadge said dryly: “Her own sources of information must have been extensive. She only knew me at second hand when she asked me here.”

“Well,” said Mr. Allsop, “Mr. Macloud is always on the side of the angels; from the point of view of the Bar Association, I mean.”

“I must tell him you said so.”

“You may. I thought at first, when Mrs. Leeder telephoned me that she had asked you to be here on this occasion, that she would have been wiser to consult me.”

“Naturally you did.”

“And I was very much surprised to hear from her,” continued the old gentleman, lifting his chin again to look at Gamadge down his nose, “that the family made no objection to your coming. The older members of it are clannish and conservative, Seward is sensitive and fastidious, Garth has always had a great idea of the Clayborn importance. The sealed music room and its contents have been a jealously guarded secret. I may say now that I was not in favour of sealing the room at all. But I could not protest effectively, and it was done under my own eye.”

“Such a secret, of course,” said Gamadge, “can be a source of power—can be used as a threat.”

Mr. Allsop said: “I thought it on the whole a mistake. There might have been a certain amount of talk, but nothing to the talk that would arise if the fact of the sealed room came out afterwards.” He glanced at Gamadge. “From what Mr. Macloud told me, I do not think it will come out through you, Mr. Gamadge.”

“I don't think it will. Excuse me for asking this, Mr. Allsop: didn't you think it a mistake that there should have been a wax image in the first place?”

Mr. Allsop reflected. Then he said: “I see no harm in discussing the matter with you. I heard nothing of the wax image until it had been set up; then I did reason—as tactfully as possible, for she was in a distressed condition of mind—with Mrs. Clayborn. I begged her not to be governed by morbid fancies. She argued the matter with me, I may say, sensibly. She reminded me that portrait busts and statues, of every conceivable material, are made and placed in private homes as memorials every day. Coloured wax images of saints and madonnas are set up in churches abroad, their costumes changed and jewellery hung upon them; and nobody thinks of them as morbid. Nonie was her saint.

“I would not have you think, Mr. Gamadge, that I failed to talk the matter over with her physician. He assured me that the image would prove to be a solace to Mrs. Clayborn, that she was entirely sane about it and was likely to remain so, and that he wouldn't answer for the consequences if she were badgered about it.”

“But then you found that she had made a will, forcing the image upon the family for many years.”

Mr. Allsop hesitated. Then he said: “I was not a young man myself at the time, I was in fact approaching sixty. My sympathy was already with the old. It was within my knowledge that the family had not been considerate in their attitude towards my client when she lost this favourite child. I thought it not too grave a burden to put upon them, since my client was leaving them all her money, and nothing more to her Quartette. I don't like such wills—they're a lot of trouble, and this one has been a trouble and an anxiety to me.” He looked about him, smiling. “I was prepared to be lenient in my interpretation of the restrictive clauses; I have been lenient. I have done no hunting about for infringements. I have not watched the length of the family vacations. I have not, in effect, persecuted them. When they wanted to seal the room I acquiesced, as I say. But why, now that the secret has been preserved until the very day when it need be guarded no longer—why should the Clayborns condone this—excuse me—intrusion of a stranger?”

He waited, heard nothing from Gamadge in reply, and went on: “Mrs. Leeder told me why she had asked you to come, and I was astounded. I can only think that she may be suffering from a mild case of persecution mania. Leeder…”

He paused, and went on more briskly: “There is another explanation, perhaps. She might have been afraid that Leeder would abstract these buttons.”

“Leeder?”

“You are surprised; she stands by him with pathetic fidelity. But does she trust him? Can she do so?”

“I don't know him, Mr. Allsop. I can't say.”

“You know his history?”

“In outline.”

“It would of course be most unfair of Harriet to pretend to you that you are here for the purpose of protecting her against the others, while all the time she is dreading some sleight of hand on the part of Leeder. But women can be subtle, and they can be unfair.”

“As part of the human race,” agreed Gamadge, with a smile, “they unfortunately can.”

Mr. Allsop smiled in return. “I say these old-fashioned things; quite out of date. Well: if there is any question whatever of losing the buttons in such a way… Can they be of great value, Mr. Gamadge?”

“Not unless there are jewelled buttons among them; and even so—”

“Even so, why should they tempt any of these people, who will receive their inheritance—a substantial sum for each—in a very short time?”

“I hardly know. Mrs. Leeder seems to think that the buttons—any extra value—might be a temptation to the heirs. And she even wonders whether Mrs. Clayborn may not have hidden something of greater value in the room.”

“What she put there will be found. I take no stock in this nonsense about Agnes Fitch. Agnes Fitch was a harmless and devoted person, quite incapable of theft, I should say. Families, Mr. Gamadge, always dislike these humble satellites; but they can't do without them. As for Miss Fitch taking herself off without notifying anybody, I can only say that elderly drudges, when they find themselves free at last and with money in their pockets, often do take themselves off. They get a frenzied sense of personal liberty. Something was said about a cruise; she went on the cruise, and who knows what happened to her and to her travellers' cheques? Extraordinary things happen to unprotected spinsters and their travellers' cheques.”

“Did you know these relatives of hers—the Nagles?”

“I don't think I ever saw them. Well.” Mr. Allsop rose. “I gather that you will go first into the room—”

“You and I will,” said Gamadge, with a smile.

“You and I. I may say that I don't like the notion of Leeder barging about in the music room looking for concealed property. He may even know where the buttons are; that poor girl that died was devoted to him.”

“He seems able to inspire devotion.”

“As a lawyer,” said Mr. Allsop, “I have nothing against him. As a human being, and strictly in confidence, I hate the sight of him. He was certainly the cause of that stroke which cost my client Mrs. Clayborn her life, and I am quite sure she would have made another will, cutting him out, if she had been able to do it. And though he inherits with the others, who knows what his expenses may be? When he was a young man, I can assure you that he always provided himself with the best. He has ruined Harriet's life, yet he has the impudence to come here. Unfortunately he has a certain legal standing.”

Gamadge, after a pause, asked: “Tell me, Mr. Allsop: did the police ever do any work on that alibi of his in the Sillerman case?”

“None. What took them off his trail and kept them off it was the drug complication. The Sillerman woman dispensed narcotic drugs to certain clients. When that came out, it widened the inquiry to embrace the entire underworld, and the murder was attributed to some disappointed drug addict or pedlar.” Mr. Allsop took a step or two towards the door, and turned. “You don't feel free to tell me why, in your opinion, the Clayborns accepted you, Mr. Gamadge? No? Perhaps it's as well that I shouldn't know what compulsion Harriet has laid upon her relatives. I shall go up now and tell them that I think it's best to humour her.”

“Thanks very much.”

“Roberts will notify you when the matter has been adjusted.”

The old gentleman trotted off, was met in the doorway by Leeder, gave him a short nod, and turned in the direction of the stairs.

Leeder came into the room smiling. He said: “Poor old boy,” and approached Gamadge at his easy gait. His hands were in his pockets, and when he leaned up against the mantel shelf he kept them there. Gamadge had never met anyone before who used fewer gestures or seemed able to maintain one attitude so long without changing it. He was like one on whom quiet has descended for ever.

He asked: “Has
he
accepted you?”

“Having been warned that there might be some irregularity in the proceedings this afternoon, he accepted me naturally. Any lawyer would have done the same.”

“Irregularity.” Leeder's eyes, under their drooping lids, studied Gamadge curiously. “You did stir them up with that story of yours about the coral beads. Did you invent it for that purpose?”

“No, it was a fact. There are queerer facts in my experience, in everybody's.”

“Poor Cynthia intercepted me on my way out yesterday to tell me about it and ask me what I thought about it. She's wondering whether you intend to rake over the music room for pearls from a hypothetical pearl necklace.”