Terror comes creeping (13 page)

Hazelton looked numbly at the cigar between his shaking fingers for a moment, then threw it into the fireplace.

"I am worth, conservatively, something more than a milli on dollars at this moment," he said bleakly. "I'm no Wall Street tycoon, I'm not even considered to be a big shot there. A middling-small shot if you like. But I don't run a stock-broking business because I need the money!"

"That's a pretty speech, Father," Martha said coldly. *'Why don't you practice it for Lieutenant Greer?"

"As far as your mother's trust fund is concerned," he went on in the same bleak tone, "I have nothing to do with it. I never have—I speculate with my own money— gamble with it even. But your mother's money was different. I always felt I didn't have the right to risk it. It was a temptation at first I admit, but I got rid of the temptation by having someone else administer it. My instructions were the capital was to be invested in blue-chip stocks and there was to be no speculation of any kind. Once a year I look over the books, that's all."

"You don't expect me to believe that?" Martha said contemptuously.

"I'm not sure right now whether I expect you to believe anything," he said quiedy. "But you can easily check if you wish—ask the man who's administered the fund from six months after your mother's death right up until the present."

"Don't tell me his name is Smith and by some coincidence he's away in Europe at present?" Martha jeered.

"His name is Houston, and he's right here in this room," Hazelton said flatly. "Actually it was his senior partner, Abrams, who handled the estate for the first four years, up until his death. But Houston has managed it ever since."

"Houston?" Martha repeated slowly. Her dark eyes grew enormous. "But I thought—"

"Tell her, man!" Hazelton said fiercely. "Is it true, or not?"

Houston studied the fingernails of his right hand for a moment.

"Oh, yes," he said politely. "It's perfectly true."

"Why didn't you tell me this before!" Martha shouted at him suddenly.

"You never asked," he said mildly.

"You should have told me!" she screamed, "You let 105

1 me think all the time it was Father who was—" She

stopped suddenly.

"Go on, Martha," Houston said conversationally. "Who was what?"

"Nothing!" she said sullenly.

"Embezzling money from the trust?" He finished the sentence for her. "I don't have the capital your father has, naturally, but my income over the last five years has been in the six-figure bracket. I also don't need money, but if you would like the fund's books audited I shall be only too pleased to make the arrangements."

Martha began to cry suddenly, burying her face in her hands and making a small, wailing noise like a young child.

Houston looked across at Galbraith, his face white and strained.

"How much more do you have to see?" he asked tensely. "Will you believe it now? You've deliberately blinded yourself to it for far too long already! I've told you—Miss West, a professional nurse, has told you— when are you going to take her to a psychiatrist and find out the truth!"

"Truth?" Martha asked in a cracked voice. She lifted her head slowly and looked at him with a tear-stained face. "What truth?"

His face was ugly. "That you're insane, Martha," he said softly. "A paranoiac, a homicidal paranoiac who should be locked in a padded cell before you kill again!"

"Houston!" Galbraith said hoarsely. "You can't—"

"Insane!" Martha hissed. "So that's what you're trying to do to me?" She came out of the chair slowly and stood in a half-crouched position, staring at him fixedly.

"What a fool I've been," she said bitterly. "I thought it was my own father—and all the time it was you! I didn't realize just how clever you are, Greg. It's you who's stolen money from the fund and can't afford to have anyone survive to claim their inheritance!'*

"Martha," he said calmly. "It's no use—" 106

"It's you who planned it all," she went on in that hissing voice. "You killed Philip and then Clemmie— and now you want to convince Father and the others that I'm insane—a madwoman and a murderess! Well, you won't do it, you hear! I won't let you do it!" She screamed the last words at him and took another step closer to the card table.

"And dear, charming Miss West," she bared her teeth at Sylvia in a ghastly parody of a smile, "our housekeeper who isn't a housekeeper but a professional nurse. She's part of your plot, Greg? To back up your lies and make sure no one believes the truth when I tell it?"

"Sit down, Martha!" Houston said sharply. "Try and control yourself!"

"Of course!" she said slowly. "There had to be someone else, too. Somebody to keep the strangers out— people like Mr. Boyd who might get curious and had to be stopped. Someone like Pete Rinkman, Greg?"

"You're wUdly wrong," he said. "Stop building a nightmare that doesn't exist, Martha! You're in bad enough trouble already with the one that does exist!"

"Pete," she repeated the name slowly. "He's the one! You're too smart for me, Mr. Houston!" She looked at Sylvia and sneered openly, "You and your lady-friend nurse! But Pete isn't very smart, I can get the truth out of him . He's the one I can handle. . . . Yes, he's the one." Her voice dropped to a murmur as if she was talking more to herself than anyone else.

"Pete!" She nodded vigorously. "I must talk to him now, right away, before it's too late." She walked quickly to the door and then out into the hallway.

"Pete!" Her voice grew fainter as she went into the back rooms of the house somewhere. "Pete! Where are you, Pete!" A door slammed and then there was silence.

"Someone should stop her," Houston said uneasily. "Before she harms herself."

"Sylvia," I said. "I owe you an apology. You were telling me the truth when you said Houston suggested

you should come and ask me to come here tonight?"

"Don't bother to apologize," she said coldly. "Just drop dead!"

Houston shrugged his shoulders irritably, then looked at Hazelton.

"Now you know beyond any doubt," he said evenly. "It*s too late to save Philip and Clemmie, but at least you can try and save Martha from herself. Will you call the police, or will I?"

"I wouldn't be too quick about calling Greer," I said to him casually. "It wouldn't hurt to check a couple of points first."

"You aren't concerned in this, Boyd!" he said shortly. "So keep your mouth shut!"

"Martha's still my client, and that gives me an interest," I said. "And watch your manners, Houston, or I'll knock your teeth out!"

"I wouldn't have believed it," Hazelton said in a trembling voice. "But her outburst just now—the hysterics—it was awful. It—"

"You think that proves she's blown her stack?" I said to him. "I figure it was a normal reaction."

"Normal?" Hazelton said blankly, looking at me for the first time.

"You have to remember she thought it was you conspiring against all three of them," I said. "That was why she hired me—she'd convinced herself somehow that you had stolen money from the trust fund and were actively planning to kill all three of them."

"Doesn't that sound insane?" Houston demanded.

"You have to remember also," I said to Hazelton, ignoring the attorney's question, "when she came to me, Philip was already missing and Clemmie was up here with Miss West watching her the whole time, and Pete Rinkman acting like a guard to keep people out. It looked to Martha that her sister was being kept a prisoner here—she didn't know you were worried about Clemmie's mental balance."

"Perhaps not," Hazelton said dully.

"Get her to a psychiatrist!" Houston said loudly. "You'll have proof soon enough about the state of Martha's mind!"

"You keep saying that," I snarled at him. "You keep saying Martha's insane—and Sylvia West keeps on saying she's insane and Clemmie was on her way to becoming insane. Any moment now, Pete Rinkman's going to come rushing in here and say the same thing."

I looked at Hazelton. "But nobody else has said that. You were only frightened that one or both of your daughters might have inherited the family history of insanity. But up to this moment you never believed that either of them were actually insane, did you?"

"No," Hazelton stiffened in his chair. "No, I didn't."

"I haven't known either of them for long," I said. "But I never thought for a moment that Clemmie was insane or showing any signs of abnormality. And I don't think for one moment that Martha is insane now. How did you come to hire Miss West?"

"WTiy—Houston said if I was worried about the girls, why didn't I hire a professional nurse to keep an eye on them. He said the girls didn't need to know. The nurse could pretend to be a housekeeper at the farmhouse."

"Then he produced Miss West as the right candidate for the job?"

"Yes, yes, he did!" His eyes were suddenly alert again.

"And after Miss West had been on the job a little while she gave you a bad report on Clemmie, maybe? Suggested it would be better if Clemmie stayed on the farm full-time for a while so she could keep her under close observation?"

"Yes!" he said sharply.

"How about Pete Rinkman? Whose idea was it to employ a handyman who was really a bodyguard—to keep people out?"

Galbraith Hazelton stood up slowly, his mustache bristling, his back ramrod-stiff.

"Do you have any further points to make, Boyd?" he asked in a deceptively mild voice. His eyes glittered as he watched Houston the whole time.

"Gilding the lily," I said. "When you knew Fd taken Clemmie away from here—it would be Houston who produced the private detective, Tolvar, to bring her back? Houston who said, once you'd got her back, wouldn't it be best if you all went up to the farmhouse for a time where you'd be safe, and take Tolvar along for extra protection?"

Hazelton walked slowly toward the card table, his eyes still fixed on Houston's chalk-white face.

"I think, Greg," he said in a low voice, "I'm going to kill you!"

"Don't waste your time, Mr. Hazelton," I told him. "The law will take care of that!"

"Have you all gone mad?" Houston said desperately. "What motive could I have for trying to prove them insane—for killing Philip and ClenMnie!"

"The answer to that is in the trust fund, I guess," I told him. "If the money's all there, you have nothing to worry about."

"I've said the money's all there!" he said tautly. "I already told you that—over and over! Didn't you hear me? If you want the books checked over I'm perfectly prepared to—"

"I don't think you need bother, Houston," I told him. "Lieutenant Greer's taken care of that already."

"Anyone you nominate, can take a look at—" He turned his head slowly and stared at me. "What did you say?"

"Lieutenant Greer's had the New York police subpoena the trust fund's accounts," I repeated. "They're being checked over right now."

For the first time there was some expression in his dead eyes. They looked sick. He picked up the deck of

cards from the table and began to riffle them aimlessly in his hands.

"Oh, my God!" he said softly. "Who'll believe me now?"

Sylvia West began to cry noiselessly, the tears streaming down her face as she sat and watched Houston.

"Maybe now would be a good time to call Lieutenant Greer," I said to Hazelton.

"Yes," he nodded. "I was so wrong about you, Boyd, I don't know how to apologize. You had more faith in my daughter than I had—your faith couldn't be shaken the way mine was. That's a bitter lesson I will never forget."

"I wouldn't worry about that too much," I told him. "When Martha knows the truth, I guess it'll make you both equal again. You thought for a little while she was a murderer, and she thought the same of you."

"I hope you're right," he said. "I'll call the Lieutenant right away."

"I'll go find Martha," I said. "The sooner she knows, the better for her."

I got as far as the door and stopped for a moment to look back at Houston.

"I wouldn't try running," I told him. "Greer's got the whole place surrounded by cops," I said in a wUd exaggeration. "I don't think you'd get ten yards out the front door!"

Then I realized I was wasting my time. He still sat there staring at nothing, while his hands shuffled and reshuffled the cards in a formless pattern. Mr. Houston wasn't going any place—he wasn't going to try and go any place. Mr. Houston was all through.

She was nowhere inside the house. I'd checked every room and there was no sign of her. I went out of the back door and called her a couple of times but she didn't answer.

The cold moonlight bathed the farm in its brilliance 111

and the crisp air was still. Any sound would carry a long way on a night like this—if she was anywhere on the farm at all, she would have heard me. If she heard me, she'd answer, I reasoned, unless she heard me and couldn't answer.

I walked quickly away from the house with icy fingers tightening around my insides. Houston had Sylvia West working for him inside the house—and Pete working for him outside the house. It could have been either one of them that moved Sweet William around in the pens to fool the cops; but it was Pete who told Greer about the mythical hit-and-run accident where Tolvar had supposedly been killed. So maybe he'd panicked when Martha had come screaming accusations at him?

There were two obvious places to look at first. One was the bam, and the other was the lake. I didn't want to think about the lake. In her state of mind when she'd rushed,out of the room blindly, Martha could have done anything, including drown herself in the same lake where her sister had been drowned. I preferred Pete, out of the two possibilities.

I got to the bam, then slowed down to a sudden stop. If he did have Martha inside, she might still be unharmed. But if I went charging in like a mad dog, he could panic and maybe kill her before I got to him.

So I moved quietly up to the door of the bam and saw it was open about a foot—enough for me to squeeze through without opening it any further. The Magnum's weight in my right hand was reassuring as I edged my way inside the barn slowly, making no noise.