The Four Johns (19 page)

“It certainly is,” said Susie, and they sat in silence. And all of a sudden Susie looked up and said, “Mervyn.”

“What, Susie?”

“I think this is important enough to investigate as quickly as possible.”

“But the police …”

“Another day won't matter, will it?”

“But where would we start investigating?” Mervyn asked rather helplessly. “I've already proved what a bust I am as a detective.”

“We go to the horse's mouth—Mrs. Kelly.”

“In the hospital?”

“Where else? It's too late tonight—after visiting hours—but we can go first thing in the morning. We can both use a good night's sleep, anyway, after—after everything that's happened today. All right?”

Mervyn took her hand and squeezed. It was warm and alive, and it squeezed back.

“All right,” said Mervyn fervently.

Daytime visiting hours were not until 2
P
.
M
., but Susie knew the nurse on the floor, and they managed to get into Mrs. Kelly's room. Mrs. Kelly took one look at Mervyn and opened her mouth to shriek. Susie was on her in a bound.

“Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly,” Susie said swiftly, “
don't
. I'm here—I'll protect you. Trust me, won't you?”

The old lady mumbled excitedly from under Susie's firm hand.

“Promise me you'll just
listen
. Promise?”

Mrs. Kelly nodded and subsided. Susie took her hand away. Mervyn, poised at the closed door timidly, relaxed, but only just enough so that his muscles would respond to the emergency of instant flight if instant flight became necessary. As for Mrs. Kelly, she kept her terrified eyes on him throughout.

“Here's what we want to know, Mrs. Kelly,” Susie said rapidly. “You claim Mervyn Gray here was the one who pushed you down those steps.…”

“He was the one,” whispered the old lady.

“How do you know?” asked Susie.

“What?” said Mrs. Kelly.

“I said, how do you know Mervyn was the one who pushed you? When people are pushed downstairs the pushing has to be done from behind, hasn't it? Or it simply isn't pushing. So I ask you, Mrs. Kelly: If you were just starting down the steps and someone came up behind you and gave you a shove,
how can you know it was Mervyn Gray
?”

Mervyn could only look at Susie with abject adoration. There was a brain. The perfectly obvious point had stared him in the face all the time, and he hadn't seen it once. What a girl! he thought.

“What I'm getting at is,” said Susie, “you didn't actually
see
Mervyn push you, Mrs. Kelly, did you?”

“Well, no …” the old lady mumbled. “But somebody else did! She told me.”

“Oh,” said Susie.

“The person happened to be at her apartment window with the lights off,” Mrs. Kelly quavered, “and she saw me come out of my apartment and walk over to the steps. Then she saw Mr. Gray sneak up behind me barefooted, looking like—like a crazy man, and push me hard as he could just as I was starting down. Yes,” cried the old lady, pointing a shaking finger directly at Mervyn, “and she says you were laughing like a maniac all the time you were doing it, Mr. Gray! Shame on you! Doing a thing like that to a body that never did a mortal person harm!”

“Shhh,” Susie said soothingly, stroking the old lady's hand. “Mr. Gray didn't do it, Mrs. Kelly.”

“He … didn't?”

“No, Mrs. Kelly. You were pushed by someone else.”

“But—but she
told
me he did it! She told me she saw the whole thing!” cried the old lady.

“Who told you, Mrs. Kelly?”

“Why, Harriet Brill!”

“I don't think there's any question now about what happened,” Mervyn said as he and Susie sat in the Volkswagen near the hospital entrance after they came down from Mrs. Kelly's room. “And now that I know what happened, and that nobody named John had a damn thing to do with it, I keep wondering how one person could have been so wrong about so many things.”

“Poor Mervyn,” mourned Susie, with a little laughter in the mourning. “I wasn't seeing exactly straight myself.”

“Why, you've been
wonderfully
perceptive,” Mervyn said warmly. “Oh, of course I see it all now—after you've practically drawn me diagrams.

“The whole thing was based on a misunderstanding on Harriet's part. That phone conversation she told you she overheard in your apartment, when Mary was on the phone talking to ‘John.' Actually, Mary was talking to John Boce at that time, trying to cajole him into driving her to the airport—
not
arranging to elope with him; I don't think Mary was intending to go away with anybody, just off on a jaunt somewhere by herself.

“Anyway, hearing Mary's usual lovey-dovey stuff with Boce on the phone, Harriet jumped to conclusions. And when, later that evening, Boce broke his date with Harriet on an obviously false pretext, and then asked to borrow her car, Harriet must have been positive that it was John Boce she had overheard Mary arranging to ‘go away' with. And, for Harriet, that must have been the last straw—the man she was secretly gone on having the gall to ask for her car to elope, as she thought, with another woman!

“Of course, she turned Boce down cold about her car; but she must have been furious, and when she saw Mary leaving with the suitcase—that must have been just before or about eight o'clock that evening—she made up her mind to have it out with Mary then and there.

“By the time Harriet reached the sidewalk,” Mervyn said, frowning, “Mary must already have been sitting in my Volkswagen waiting for
me
to drive her to the airport. And Harriet leaned in and began jawing at her, accusing Mary of stealing John Boce from her—”

“And knowing my sister Mary,” Susie murmured, “she must have told Harriet where she could go. God knows Mary didn't want John Boce. But she'd want even less another female telling her she couldn't have him.”

Mervyn nodded. “Whatever it was Mary said to her, Harriet lost her head. She reached over and grabbed the first thing she saw—which happened to be my ski boot—and brought it down with all her might on Mary's head. And then ran back to her own apartment. I was in my apartment depositing my groceries and changing my shirt preparatory to driving Mary to the airport, and you were getting my convertible, and the whole thing between Mary and Harriet must have happened during those few minutes. By the time you drove around the corner and I got out there, Mary was already dead and Harriet was back in her apartment. The only part of it I don't understand at all is that shoving-Mrs.-Kelly-down-the-steps business.”

“You stepped out of the room to argue with the head nurse when she found us in Mrs. Kelly's room,” Susie said, “and while you were out Mrs. Kelly told me something that answers the question.

“Mrs. Kelly had been over to the church at a committee meeting earlier, she said, and when I asked her what time she got back she said it was just about eight o'clock. Mervyn, the Volkswagen was parked right outside the Garden Apartments, where Mrs. Kelly
had
to go past it on her way in. So she must have passed the Volkswagen when Harriet was either arguing with Mary or, for all I know, even killing her.

“As it happens,” Susie said, “Mrs. Kelly didn't even notice.
But Harriet must have seen her
—”

“And assumed Mrs. Kelly watched the whole thing happen!” Mervyn cried.

“That's right. So when Harriet ran back to her apartment with Mary's blood on her conscience—if any—she probably had only one thought: to shut Mrs. Kelly's mouth. Her chance came later that evening when the old lady left her apartment to go back to the church, or wherever she was bound. When Mrs. Kelly reached the top of the steps, Harriet sneaked up behind her and pushed her down—”

“Tried to kill her, too,” muttered Mervyn.

“But when Mrs. Kelly didn't die, Harriet naturally had to keep visiting her in the hospital just to see how much she did know or remember. And apparently Harriet decided Mrs. Kelly's fall had knocked the whole thing out of her poor old head. So then, just to round things off, she told Mrs. Kelly that whopper about having seen you do the pushing.” Susie shuddered. “Between Harriet and me, Mervyn, we almost did a perfect job on you—”

Mervyn grabbed Susie's arm. “Susie!”

“What?”

“Talk of the devil.”

Up the street came Harriet Brill, shapeless in a baggy purplish tweed suit. She was carrying an armful of flowers.

“She's on her way to see Mrs. Kelly,” Susie gasped. “And the old lady's sure to spill the beans—”

“Call her over here,” Mervyn said swiftly. “And play along with me, Susie!”

Susie leaned out the window. “Harriet!”

Harriet stopped dead in her tracks. But then she grinned all over, and hurried toward the Volkswagen with happy cries. “Mervyn! Susie! What are you two doing here?”

“We've just been kicked out of the hospital,” said Mervyn darkly. “Came to visit with Mrs. Kelly, and the head nurse made an awful row because it wasn't visiting hours.”

“Oh,
shoot
,” said Harriet. “I thought the poor thing might like some fresh flowers.”

“Better not go up there, Harriet. That battle-ax of a nurse,” said Susie, “has blood in her eye.”

“Well …” said Harriet doubtfully.

“We were just leaving,” Mervyn said. “Jump in. I'll drive you back.”

“Why,
thank
you,” said Harriet. “Aren't you sweet!”

Susie squeezed forward to let Harriet get in the back, and Mervyn started the Volkswagen and drove down Grove Street.

Harriet suddenly said, “Why are we going this way?”

“Oh, I got a damn parking ticket,” Mervyn said. “I'll only be a minute paying my fine,” and he parked at the Berkeley City Hall and jumped out and hurried toward the annex housing the Police Department.

“Any word from Mary?” Harriet asked casually. “Mervyn has been worried about her.”

“She's probably having the time of her life in Ventura,” Susie answered, not trusting herself to turn around.

“Strange she hasn't written.”

“Well,” said Susie in a strangled voice, “you know Mary.”

Conversation languished. Presently Harriet said, “Mervyn's certainly taking a long time.”

“Here he comes now.”

“Who's that
handsome
man with Mervyn?”

Mervyn leaned into the car. “This is Lieutenant Hart, ladies. Susie Hazelwood in front, lieutenant. In back—Harriet Brill.”

Lieutenant Hart nodded politely. “How do you do? Would you both mind coming inside for a minute?”

Susie got out of the car. Lieutenant Hart held the door open. “Miss Brill?”

“What do you want?” Harriet faltered.

“I want to ask a few questions. We'll be more comfortable inside.”

Harriet got slowly out of the car. She turned toward Mervyn and Susie, who were standing a little aside. In their tense, accusing faces she suddenly read something terrible. She looked wildly around, but Lieutenant Hart took her firmly by the elbow.

“What have they been telling you?” Harriet cried. “Whatever it is, it's a lie!”

“Then you won't mind telling me the truth, Miss Brill,” said Lieutenant Hart courteously, “will you?”

CHAPTER 14

Professor Burton made a stabbing gesture toward a chair.

“Sit down, Gray.”

Mervyn sat down in the straight-backed oak chair. The interview was proceeding exactly as imagined. Professor Burton had commanded Mervyn to drop by on a matter “connected with” his work.

Professor Burton leaned back, placed the tips of his fingers together and inspected Mervyn with cold curiosity. Then he said in a disagreeable voice, “A most unsavory affair, Gray.”

Mervyn nodded warily.

The head of the English department cleared his throat, arranged some papers on his desk. “I've followed the case closely. Deplorable, deplorable. It's a wonder to me you're not in jail.”

“They spoke to me rather harshly,” Mervyn admitted.

“Please do not misunderstand me, Gray. Faced with the same incredible circumstances, who am I to say that I would act with more courage? This does not mean, of course, that I condone your conduct—”

“Of course,” said Mervyn humbly.

“… but merely that I hold with Crabbe: ‘That all men would be cowards if they dare,/Some men we know have courage to declare.' Hrrm! Well! All this to one side. I trust you understand, Gray, that under the circumstances it is manifestly impossible for you to assume a schedule of classes this fall?”

Mervyn said nothing.

“Oh,” said Professor Burton, “after a year or two—perhaps three, or four—who knows? In Pope's phrase, ‘The world forgetting, by the world forgot,' haha! Well, let us hope for the fickleness of public memory, eh, Gray?” He glanced at Mervyn rather uneasily. “Do you have any plans?”

“Since you just gave me the ax, Dr. Burton,” Mervyn said with a sigh, “I've hardly had much time to think about the future.”

“Of course. Quite so.” Burton rapped on his desk with his long white fingers, regarding a bust of Shakespeare on the other side of the room. Suddenly he said, “Gray. Do you know the Castel Poldiche? Near Villefranche?”

“I beg your pardon?”

The professor repeated his question.

Mervyn shook his head. “I can't say that I do.”

“One of the oldest inhabited structures of France. The great hall dates from the eleventh century. Well, a few weeks ago a crypt was opened, yielding among other treasures a coffer containing a number of twelth-century secular manuscripts. There are: six
planhs
, apparently the work of Bertran de Bon; an autobiographical poem by one Cleanthe de Marbolh; a long
chanson de geste
, signed merely ‘Blaye'—quite probably Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaye, who is known to have frequented Castel Poldiche during the
Guerre des Amantes
—and a great deal of material less easily identified. Are you interested?”