“Herr Professor Furness. He was agitated because you were so long in returning to the car, and when the Herr Leutnant and I knew nothing of your whereabouts, he went in search of you. Then he came back carrying you unconscious.”
“Carrying me? I calls that downright touching.”
“Miss O’Breen,” Jonadab Evans ventured hesitantly, “you said that you deduced later where the—the murderer must have been. Could you tell us?
She nodded. “Get a piece of paper? I think I could draw it easier than tell it. At first I thought he must have been standing behind me to hit Worth in the heart like that, but then Worth must have seen him; and I don’t think he was so drunk he wouldn’t notice a man with a gun. Then I remembered where the noise seemed to come from, and I think it must have been like this.” She completed her hasty sketch and showed it to the others:
“You see, the murderer must have come into the room when it was dark, switched on the light, and ducked behind the open door. The light woke Worth up. He got up and was just looking around when he saw me in the hall. He couldn’t see X behind the door. And all X had to do was to wait until Worth, with all his staggering, would weave into a good line of fire.”
“But why should he shoot when he knew you were there?”
“Why not? I hadn’t seen him, and before I could raise any kind of an alarm he knocked me out. He knew I couldn’t give any testimony against him.”
Federhut seemed to be considering the testimony as a trial judge. “It could be,” he delivered as his opinion.
“Why don’t they come back?” F. X. Weinberg plaintively wanted to know. “I should know the worst yet.”
“They’ve been gone only a couple of minutes,” Dr. Bottomley reminded him. “You don’t know how long the Lieutenant might want for a preliminary examination.”
But just then the two men returned. Furness went straight to the sofa in answer to a surprising smile from Maureen; but Jackson remained near the door and faced the group.
“You might as well make up your minds,” he said, “that you’re in for a night of it. You’re going to be questioned till you’re blue in the face and probably elsewhere. The police will take over 221B and there’ll be no rest for anybody. So you’re warned.”
A dreadful inarticulate noise came from Mr. Weinberg.
“Not the best publicity, is it? But you’re up against the fact that a serious crime has been committed in this house. There’s no doubt of that any longer. There’s a damned sight more than Miss O’Breen’s story to go on now. There’s more blood in that room than any man could lose and live. The room itself, is to coin a phrase, a shambles. The only thing that’s lacking for a perfect murder case is a corpse.”
“A corpse!” Maureen cried incredulously.
“Exactly. There is no trace in this house of the body of Stephen Worth.”
Chapter 7
TIME: One A.M., Tuesday, July 18, 1939
PLACE: Still 221B Romualdo Drive
Two hours earlier they had been simply a group of people, of assorted trades and professions, quietly recuperating from a somewhat disastrous party. Now they were unified as The Suspects in the Worth Case. There they sat in the flower-decked room—Maureen, Mr. Weinberg, the Irregulars (all five of them, for Harrison Ridgly III had been picked up by a squad car on one of the intertwining streets near Romualdo Drive, as hopelessly lost as Maureen had prophesied), and even Mrs. Hudson, now restored to a worthy semblance of efficiency. Lieutenant Jackson was in the room, too; and near the door sat a stolid police sergeant, silently and relentlessly consuming a varicolored package of Lifesavers.
“This,” said Jonadab Evans wistfully, “is very different from what the Writings have taught us to expect of a police investigation.” It was the first remark anyone had made in almost a quarter of an hour.
“How so?” asked Maureen.
“We have come to believe that a few policemen arrive at the scene of the crime, trample about ruthlessly for a half-hour or so, ask some obvious questions, and end by (a) making a patently wrong arrest, or (b) finding themselves completely baffled. Then they depart, leaving the field clear to the ingenuity of the cultivated amateur. But here we find none of this heedless trampling. The police descend on us in great numbers, but organized with supreme efficiency. They take over the house and set to work with insufflators and cameras and every imaginable mechanism. The Master himself could no more expect to find a disregarded clue left behind them than he could hope to find a grain of wheat left in the wake of a storm of locusts.”
“And the questioning,” Dr. Bottomley added. “Hell and death, sirs, Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones would have had our stories by now in the fullest detail. Already they would have been leaping blithely from crag to crag of erroneous conjecture, while this Lieutenant Flinch has heard nothing but Jackson’s brief résumé.”
“Finch,” said Jackson.
“Finch? I beg your pardon. But Finch or Flinch, why should the man keep us waiting around here like this?”
“Effect on the nerves. I don’t think I’m giving away any trade secrets. Point is: if there’s a murderer among you, which, as clear-minded men, you must admit seems a logical conclusion for Finch to draw, that murderer had a nice pretty story all ready at eleven thirty; and the first thing he wanted to do, as soon as the police arrived, was to tell it. The longer he waits around here, the more he’s going to wonder whether it’s as good a story as he thought it was. He’s going to try to plug up the holes and give it a bit more polish. And the final result will be a yarn that Finch can spot as a phony on first hearing.”
“But wouldn’t he be afraid that we’d take the chance to go over things among ourselves for our own protection?”
“With me and the Sergeant here? Not so likely.”
“Look,” said Maureen. “What kind of a guy is this Lieutenant Finch?”
“A good detective,” Jackson said with sincere admiration. “A sound, shrewd man. Nothing spectacular—he isn’t brutal and he isn’t brilliant; but he knows his job. He’s lousy at guessing games on paper, so he’s never passed a promotional examination since he got to be a lieutenant years and years ago; but he’s just about as good a man as we’ve got on the force.”
“Horse feathers,” said the Sergeant unexpectedly, and guffawed.
Jackson smiled at their surprised faces. “Don’t worry. That is not insubordinate contempt of a superior officer. The Sergeant is just warning you, in his own cryptic way, about one peculiarity of Finch’s speech. For some reason, his slang is exclusively of the twenties; but don’t laugh at it. It mightn’t be wise.”
“Curious form of retarded development,” Bottomley observed. “I’d like to see what a psychiatrist might make of it.”
“Nothing, I hope. Finch has a swell wife and six children.”
“So this isn’t your case, Lieutenant?” Mr. Weinberg put in. “It’s this Finch we’ve got to worry about?”
“As I told you before, Mr. Weinberg, I’m off duty. Officially, I’m just another guest at this party.”
“But you can get—oh, a transfer of duty or whatever they call it—something like that, can’t you?” Maureen
“I don’t know. That’s up to Finch.”
“So look, Lieutenant.” F. X. Weinberg lowered his voice a little. “A scandal we mustn’t have. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t ask you to do anything but be a good detective. But if you could incidentally watch out for the reputation of Metropolis Pictures …” He ended with a slight upward inflection which suggested the pleasant crackling of bills.
“Yes?” Jackson’s voice was hard and sharp.
“It’s not like you were a stranger, Lieutenant. In our studios your own brother works. So if you could—”
Jackson stood up. “Look here, Weinberg. Sure, I know, they’ve pulled that stuff in Los Angeles and got away with it. The captain of our late-lamented Red Squad, that Federhut was so interested in, used to pull down a pretty penny as ‘labor consultant’ for
the big companies, and he earned it whenever a strike came up. But I wasn’t made for rackets like that. If I work on this case, Metropolis will get all the breaks it deserves—no more, no less. But I’ll be working to get the murderer, and I’m not having any strings tied on me.”
The Sergeant answered a rap on the door and conferred a moment with somebody outside. He turned back to Jackson. “Finch wants to see you first,” he said.
“One parting word of advice,” Jackson announced to the company. “I’ve asked questions long enough to know that the truth, no matter how screwy it sounds, is always the safest answer. Not that you’ll pay any attention to the advice, but there it is. So long.”
Lieutenant Herman Finch, middle-aged, wiry, and half an inch over the police minimum height, was waiting in the library, surrounded by walls of books apparently chosen by an illiterate interior decorator. As Jackson came in, he was filling a corncob.
“Sit down, young man,” he said, “and light up.”
Jackson obeyed.
Finch frowned. “How do you expect to think on a cigarette? Might as well try to dig ditches on a meal from a tea shop.” He struck a large kitchen match on the underside of the oak desk. “My wife’s good training,” he explained. “No polish under there to scratch up, and if there was nobody’d see it.” He lingered unduly over the lighting ceremony.
“Let’s start in, Herman,” said Jackson impatiently.
Slowly Finch shook the match out. “OKMNX,” he said. “Now don’t go touchy on me, Andy.”
“Not much danger.”
“’Cause there’s some men on the force might be a little peeved about what I’ve got to tell you.” He puffed hard at the pipe. “It’s this way, Andy: as far as this case is concerned, you’re on the other side of the fence.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“As well you might be. I just wanted it clearly understood.”
“It’s understood all right. Worth’s murder is your baby. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t work together, is there? In eleven hours I’ll be back on duty, and I’m pretty sure I can get assigned to help you. So if I string along with you up till then—”
“Uh uh. You’re young, Andy; your hearing ought to be better than that. I said you were on the other side of the fence.”
Jackson half rose. “You mean—”
“I mean that this very evening you had a fight with the vanishing corpse. You’ve got a black eye now as a result. Put it this way: if two geezers are out for each other’s blood at nine o’clock and one of ’em is murdered at eleven, you don’t put the other in charge of the investigation at one.”
“It’s funny, Herman,” Jackson said slowly. “We’re equal in rank, the two of us; but I still remember when you had your commission and I was a rooky fresh out of college. And what you say’s gospel to me. I can’t say as I like being on the other side of the fence, but if you say so—” He managed a sort of smile. “Want to question me about my movements?”
Lieutenant Finch was relaxing from his momentary stiffness. “Horse feathers, Andy,” he said. “I’ve got your statement here, and this German ought to cover you for the time of the shooting; but I just wanted to get things straight.”
“Purely for the sake of the record,” Jackson corrected, “Federhut’s an Austrian.”
“Austrian. All right. And now that we’ve got things settled, you want to sit in with me while I talk to these people? You know ’em—might give me a lead here and there—unofficially, of course.”
Jackson grinned, “You’re a good joe, Herman.”
“Don’t think I’m getting softhearted; I’ll see you make yourself useful. Hinkle!” His quiet voice rose to surprising volume. “Tell Watson to bring in the girl. Want a little advice, Andy?” he added as the Sergeant left.
“No harm done.”
“It’s this. You’re due for a vacation later this month. Why not try and get it switched to now? Then you can stick around—keep in touch with things. Otherwise you’ll get assigned to some other work and I’ll have a hard time finding you when I need you. Besides, this way the department’ll be spared the embarrassment of having one of its own active men as a material witness in a murder case.”
Jackson thought a moment and nodded. “Can do,” he said.
“Miss O’Breen,” said Lieutenant Finch, “it looks to me as though you know more about this case than anybody else except the murderer and Worth’s ghost. So I want you to tell me, in your own words, everything that has happened.”
“Starting when?” she asked helplessly.
Finch puffed his corncob. “Give me a little background first. Worth at the studio—his relation with these people—all that. Then start in and go straight through everything that took place since you got to this house today.”
“Remember my advice,” Jackson said quietly.
“Can I smoke, too?” Maureen asked. “All right. I’ll tell the whole truth, and I’ll feel like a rat doing it. I’ll get everybody in trouble, and I’ll have no consolation but knowing that I’m doing my duty and following the Lieutenant’s advice. So I might as well start by saying that everybody here hates Stephen Worth’s guts—and that goes for me double and with knobs on.”
“Hmm. You mean that each of the people in this house had a motive for killing Worth?”
“What is a motive?” Maureen countered. “I read a case once, in one of my brother’s books, about a woman who was murdered for a pretty engraved advertisement, because her servant was dumb enough to think it was a Bank of England note. A motive’s whatever you think is a motive.”
Lieutenant Finch had a pleasant, drily crinkling smile. “That, young lady, is a shrewd observation. But you just tell me the facts, and let me judge what might or might not be a motive. Now who at the studio had any special grievance against Worth?”
“The girls in the commissary, the three secretaries he fired, the seven who quit, all the other writers he’d worked with, Mr. Weinberg, and me. That’s just a rough start.”
“We’ll leave the others for a while. How about you and Mr. Weinberg?”
“Here’s where the truth begins to sound like being a rat.” She sighed. “It’s this way: F. X. wanted to get him off the script of The Speckled Band; but Worth produced a trick clause in his contract, according to which either he wrote that picture or nobody did. There were a lot of protests about his doing it because he was notoriously anti-Holmes; that’s why the Irregulars were brought out here to supervise. But life will be a lot simpler for F. X. without him.”
“And yourself?”
“The good old motive, Lieutenant. Honor is dearer than life. You know.”
“You mean that Worth had—”
“No. He hadn’t. But he’d tried enough, and I was getting pretty tired of it. I’m afraid I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead. I know that sounds heartless, but heartless is the only thing you could be about Stephen Worth.”
“I see. Now, Miss O’Breen, besides yourself and Mr. Weinberg and Lieutenant Jackson, we have in this house the five members of these Irregulars and the housekeeper. How would you link each of these with Worth?”
Maureen did not answer at once. She was staring at Jackson. “My goodness, Lieutenant, are you a suspect, too?”
Jackson pointed at his eye. “The general feeling seems to be that I can’t have been too fond of Worth myself.”
“My!” was all she could say. “When my brother hears this—Why, Lieutenant, you’re blushing!”
“Miss O’Breen,” said Finch sharply. “Please come back to the point and spare our young friend. His being mixed up in this case is just an accident, I know; but officially—Now as to these others—”
“Well, with them it isn’t quite so personal. It’s just that Worth had ridiculed them and everything they stand for. Naturally they didn’t like him. I suppose Lieutenant Jackson has told you about the ruckus this evening?”
“He has.”
“Then you can see how there’d b
e bad blood.”
“Of course. But,” Finch added meditatively, “I can’t see anybody shooting a man just because of a little ridicule. At the time, maybe yes; but hours later, in cold blood—banana oil! Wasn’t there anything more personal in Worth’s relations with these people?”
“He did make some sort of a crack to Mr. Ridgly about his sister. Ridgly’s sister, I mean. She died a month or so ago, and Ridgly’s in mourning for her. It seemed to cut pretty deep.”
“That, I admit, is a little more personal. Anything about the housekeeper?”
“Only that Worth apparently mauled even her. Every time he was alone with a woman, any woman, you’d think he just got back from a desert island. She probably didn’t like it very much—like the Chinaman.”
Jackson laughed, but Finch looked hurt. “Do you know that story, Miss O’Breen? I never get over being amazed by what girls know nowadays. Only last night I discovered what my daughter meant by her collections of limericks. In my day limericks meant Edward Lear and the ‘Old Man with a Beard.’”
“That is a good one,” Maureen agreed gleefully.
“Who said, ‘It is just as I feared.
Two owls and a wren,
Three …’
I never can get that middle part straight. I always leave something out.”
“That isn’t surprising.” There was suddenly nothing at all friendly about Finch’s voice. “It’s probably the same thing that makes you leave Drew Furness out of your story.”
Maureen sat up amazed. “Why, Lieutenant!” she gasped. “I thought you were being so nice and sweet and you were just Leading Me On. I’ll never trust a policeman again.”
“And why should you—any more than I should trust a witness? Now tell me about Furness and Worth.”
“After all that, there really isn’t much to tell. Just that Mr. Furness came out to the studio to see F. X. about firing Worth and Worth was drunk and ugly and knocked him out. Then he hired Vernon Crews to play a very stupid trick on him. And today, when Worth was going good, Drew tried to stop him, and that’s why the Lieutenant has a black eye.”
The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars Page 8
