“That business you were telling us this afternoon—I can understand your reluctance to broadcast the fact that you know so much about it, but there is one person who would like very much to hear it.”
“Who?” Paul asked between bites of hamburger.
“Dr. Ashwin.”
“And why not? Yes, I suppose a brand-new heresy like that might appeal to him—bit of variety from the Vedas. All right—I’ll give him the full story.”
“Should you like to drop over there now? He’s probably still up.”
“Very well—just a few minutes.”
The few minutes, it is almost needless to say, became an hour and a half. Dr. Ashwin welcomed them cordially—he had met Paul two or three times before—and produced a bottle of his never-failing Scotch. He listened to the story with great interest, and made a few notes from time to time. He smoked a multitude of cigarettes, but made no comment until Paul had quite finished.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Lennox,” he said then. “That was a fascinating story. It should explain a great deal. I had thought myself reasonably well-versed on the subject of heretical folklore, but this strange narrative shakes my belief in my near omniscience. I can scarcely understand how so curious a legend could have escaped me. Still, I repeat, fascinating.”
Paul smiled wryly. “I’m afraid it’s a little more than a fascinating story, Dr. Ashwin. You forget that death is a leading character.”
“I have not forgotten that.” Dr. Ashwin lit a fresh cigarette, and started to refill all three glasses.
“No thanks.” Paul placed his hand over his glass. “I have to stop in at Finch’s before it’s too late.”
“Finch’s?” Dr. Ashwin queried.
“Finch Ralton,” Martin answered, “has a good phonograph and reputedly the most beautiful male stomach in Berkeley. But that doesn’t explain, Paul, why on earth you should go out of your way to listen to him.”
Paul shrugged his shoulders. “I promised to return his record-repeater and forgot it.”
“Oh.” Martin was satisfied. “As long as it isn’t for the sheer masochistic pleasure of hearing him misquote Macleish.… I think I’ll stay a bit, if you don’t mind, Dr. Ashwin. See you tomorrow evening at rehearsal, Paul.”
Paul nodded, thanked Ashwin for his attention and his whiskey, and left for the apartment of Finch Ralton, who will probably be quite surprised, if ever he reads this, to learn that he figured, even so indirectly, in the investigation of the Schaedel murder.
Ashwin revolved slightly in his chair. “Mr. Lennox has a great many phonograph records?”
“A fine collection of his own,” Martin explained, “and then he rents a good many from the disc library in San Francisco. His phonograph’s really quite a consolation to me.”
Ashwin nodded. “And what sort of records interest him?”
“Mostly symphonies and chamber music—a few Lieder—on the whole practically nothing but album sets.”
“No dance records?”
“No. I’m afraid Paul is a trifle austere in his tastes.”
Dr. Ashwin leaned back in his swivel chair and drained his whiskey glass. “That austerity, Mr. Lamb,” he said, “is in my opinion the most curious portion of the narrative of Mr. Lennox.”
CHAPTER IV
Martin Accuses
Mona smiled.
Martin’s premonitions were fully justified. That smile did make the impartial attitude of an investigator damnably difficult. He began to wonder why he had ever decided to play detective in this murder, which was, after all, no concern of his.
To be sure, if he had not had his investigations as a basis for rationalizing, he might never have taken Mona to see the Mexican film when he really should have been conventionally studious in the stacks of the library, and should have missed thereby two pleasures. One was the picture itself, a concoction of subtle horror such as only the Mexicans seem able to create; the other, of course, was Mona.
Ordinarily so quiet and reserved, she had changed amazingly in the theatre. She shuddered quite unrepressedly at the more shuddersome moments, and clutched Martin’s arm when the black letters of an evil book changed to crawling death-worms. With the strange closing line of the film still sounding in his mind, still possessed of the curious sense of unreality which the mad plot had instilled in him, Martin had suddenly awakened to the fact that Mona’s hand lay in his. Her hand was warm and very real.
Mona smiled and consented to another glass of sherry. For his part, Martin ordered more beer.
They were seated in a booth at a cheap beer joint near the little theatre, refreshing themselves after the horrors of the picture and fortifying themselves for the long street-car ride back to the campus.
“One does not know what to believe,” Mona murmured. “It leaves a strange mood, that picture. It is as the husband said, ‘Perhaps those dead monks came to life, or perhaps we three died for one night. Who knows?’”
“Death in itself is strange,” Martin observed. “Perhaps a strange death is less so—the two strangenesses canceling each other.…”
The drinks arrived—which was perhaps just as well, since Martin’s conceit of death threatened to become painfully muddled. Mona sipped her sherry silently, then said, “I saw Kurt Ross at noon. He is sad because of his uncle.”
The death of Dr. Schaedel was something which Martin did not wish to discuss directly at the moment. Instead he asked, “And Lupe Sanchez? How is she?”
“I saw her on Sunday afternoon. That is why I went to San Francisco early. She is much better, thank you, Martin.”
“Was her illness serious?”
“N … no.” Mona appeared to be about to say more, but changed her mind. Martin waited a moment, and then, deciding that that approach was closed, offered Mona a cigarette, took one himself, and returned to the subject of the picture.
But even as he elaborated his theories of the horror film Martin was watching Mona closely. She obviously wished to say something. Finally, thinking the moment right, he paused in his dissertation and drained his glass of beer.
“Martin …” Mona began hesitantly.
“Yes?” He did not wish to seem eager.
“You are a friend of Kurt’s?”
“Of course,” Martin replied evenly, despite a slight twinge of conscience.
“Then please be nice to him.”
“I always am.” Martin was a little puzzled by this approach. “Should you care for another drop of sherry?”
“Please.” Martin pantomimed the order as Mona falteringly continued. “But I mean … very nice … comforting. He is unhappy, and he has so few friends. You and Remigio and one or two others. And Remigio is not of much help,” she added with true sisterly scepticism.
“I can understand,” Martin nodded sympathetically. “His uncle dead … Lupe in the hospital …” Inwardly he cursed himself for a trebly damned hypocrite.
Mona was not smiling now, but the serious expression of her mobile face seemed almost sweeter. “He needs someone, Martin. And he does not dare to go to visit Lupe for fear that someone might suspect—”
The arrival of the sherry and beer cut off the sentence, to Martin’s irritation. “Suspect what?” he asked with apparent indifference, when the waiter was gone.
Mona took a large drink of her sherry as though to strengthen herself. “Another cigarette, please, Martin,” she asked. The sherry had combined with the fact that they were speaking Spanish to make her unusually confidential. She blew a cloud of smoke and began. “It is perhaps better that I tell you all. Only Kurt and Lupe and I know, but if you too know it may help you with Kurt. It is no illness that Lupe has.”
Martin nodded. “I had thought as much.”
“I am sorry for her. I know that it is wrong, but she and Kurt—they love each other so. They were so happy.… And then she discovered this. There was only this way out. One of Lupe’s friends had told her of this doctor in San Francisco—I will not tell you the friend’s name,
but she had been to him twice. He was sure and safe. And then—they had no money.”
Mona fell silent and returned to her sherry. Martin continued looking as much like a father confessor as possible.
“You said that death is strange, Martin,” she resumed suddenly. “To me love is quite as strange, and far more terrifying. I think of Lupe, and I do not want to love. Not ever. If such a thing were to happen to me—Remigio would—I do not know what he would do. And if the General were to learn of this …”
“The General?”
“Lupe’s father.”
Then Martin remembered. General Pompilio Sánchez y Lárreda, once a famous and daring Mexican rebel, now led a life of painful enforced quiet in Los Angeles. A proud man, claiming that in his veins flowed the blood of Conquistador and Aztec alike, the vigor of the conqueror and the nobility of the conquered.
“Why did they not marry?” Martin asked.
“Lupe is engaged to the son of an old aide of the General’s. Him she must some day marry, and return with him to Mexico. It would kill her father else.”
“But if they had no money, how does it happen that she’s in San Francisco now?”
“That I do not know. Saturday morning Lupe tells me that all is well, she can go to the doctor. That is all I know.”
It was almost too perfect, Martin thought. Everything dovetailed together. Everything but the fact that Kurt Ross was such a decent, likable fellow.
“And you will be nice to Kurt, and try to help him?” Mona was asking. Martin suddenly noticed with surprise that somewhere in their confidential talk she had abandoned the formality of usted and was addressing him familiarly as tú.
“If only for your sake,” he answered gallantly in the same form.
She shook her head. “Not for my sake, Martin. For his.”
“I shall go to see him as soon as we get back to International House.” That at least, Martin thought ruefully, was the truth.
“That is good. I like you, Martin.” And he was rewarded with another smile and a light pressure of his hand as they rose from the table.
The serious mood dispelled, they chatted so gaily on the streetcar in an irresponsible mixture of Spanish and English, that Martin quite forgot his twinges of conscience. But the key still lay in his pocket.
“I’ll go right up to Kurt,” Martin had promised Mona as they parted in the hall of International House. But the stimulating effects of her smile wore off quickly, and instead he went to his own room.
Sitting disconsolate on the bed, he held a lengthy silent soliloquy. What was he to do? He had no desire to give his evidence, such as it was—the key, Kurt’s wild entrance Friday evening, Lupe’s abortion—to the police without allowing Kurt a chance to explain things. But he could hardly walk in upon the young Swiss and say, “Look here. I’m pretty certain that you murdered your uncle, and I’d just like to hear what you have to say about it.”
If only he were dead certain that Kurt was the murderer. He could write out his evidence in an impressive document, leave it for Kurt with a note saying, “Tomorrow I deliver this to the police,” and wait for Kurt to complete the conventional gambit by committing suicide. But he was not certain.
Damn it, one didn’t know murderers. He had once played with a pet theory that every person, in the course of a lifetime, knows at least one murderer. He remembered once shocking a girl’s parents at the dinner table with this pronouncement. They were incredulous until the girl’s mother suddenly recalled some curious facts concerning a onetime neighbor and revealed to Martin the most ingenious case of unprovable faked suicide that he had ever heard.
But this was different. A congenial, relatively intimate friend … It was as though Paul or Alex or he himself should be a murderer. And it was—this was what bothered him the most—it was out of character. It was a subtle murder from an open person.
He began to wish that some of the bourbon were left from Friday’s binge. Three beers are very little to fortify you for an accusation of murder.
And then another thought struck him. Was he himself safe? His mind, filled with mystery novels, recalled that the man who, in the conventional phrase, Knew Too Much was always the victim of the second murder. If he hinted his knowledge to Kurt, might not he himself be killed before he could inform the police? He saw a pretty picture of himself lying on a sidewalk—probably with the Seven of Calvary beside him—and wondered just how an ice pick felt.
Suddenly he rose, extinguished his cigarette, and hurried down the corridor. He did not even bother to knock on Kurt’s door. He opened it, and walked to the dresser before which Kurt was combing his hair. He laid the gold Phi Beta Kappa key on the table and said, “I found this. I thought you might want it.” Then he turned to leave the room.
Martin himself did not know why he had done this. It merely seemed the simplest way of washing one’s hands of the whole business. Relief was already on his face when Kurt’s hand stopped him at the door. The thought of the second victim flashed absurdly across his mind; but the expression on Kurt’s face was puzzlement rather than anger.
“Don’t rush off like that, Martin,” the tall Swiss was saying. “Stay and talk while I finish dressing. Then we might dine together.”
Martin smiled. “Dine is a queer word for the usual food here,” he said. “But we might eat together.”
Kurt nodded. “Sit down, then.” Martin obeyed, wondering what the next move was. “Where,” Kurt asked, with an unsuccessful attempt at nonchalance, “where did you find that key?”
“Under a bush.”
“What bush? Where?”
“The bush beside which they found the Seven of Calvary.”
The puzzlement on Kurt’s face grew deeper. The name seemed entirely strange to him. “The Seven of Calvary?” he repeated slowly. “What has that to do with my key?”
If this were mere acting, Martin decided, the Little Theatre had lost a brilliant star. “You don’t know the Seven of Calvary?” he asked, penciling idly on a scrap of paper.
“No.” Kurt’s voice sounded completely sincere. Then he started back as he saw what Martin was sketching. “That!” he gasped. “That is what you mean?” Martin nodded. “I see … I see …” Kurt sank into a chair. “So that is it. You too, Martin … You think …”
“Yes?”
“You think that I murdered my uncle.”
This was all wrong, Martin thought. Nothing in his previous calculations had come out quite like this. The accusation was proceeding from the suspect himself, not from the brilliant young amateur investigator. He swallowed with a good deal of effort and finally blurted forth, “Yes.” He was surprised by his own voice.
Kurt spoke softly, but his tone was sorrowful. “I was not surprised by the police,” he said. “To them I was just a possibility, not a person—just something that had to be investigated. But you, Martin—I had thought that you were a friend.”
Martin tried to summon up the logical attitude of the righteous accuser. It was no go. He could only feel sorry for Kurt. The tall blond youth no longer resembled Young Siegfried. Rather he looked like an older Siegfried, at the moment wherein he realizes that Hagen has struck him through. And Martin did not like to be Hagen. He sought for words that would be comforting, and thought of Mona’s request, and of her smile.
“Why?” Kurt was asking. “Why could you think that of me?”
Martin forgot the phrases that he was hunting for and spoke straight out. “I didn’t want to,” he said. “But I simply couldn’t help it. Everything pointed that way. Your terrified entrance to my room Friday evening—I noticed then that you’d lost your key—then finding the key in the bush in front of Cynthia’s … And the symbol was Swiss—that pointed to you. Besides, I knew about Lupe—”
“You knew?” Kurt interrupted.
“That is,” Martin hurried to make clear, “I guessed. From various little references that people made.” He had quickly realized that Kurt would not appreciate Mona’s confidences.
Kurt rose slowly. “I suppose I cannot blame you,” he said. “If you knew all that. That is more than the police knew. But you, Martin, you knew me.”
“That was what worried me so much. The whole thing wasn’t like you. I couldn’t feel sure. That is why I told nothing to the police.”
“Thank you, Martin.” Kurt was looking more nearly happy. “I spoke too soon. I should have known that you were kind when you returned to me the key. And to be grateful now I shall tell it all to you.”
“Tell it all?” Martin wondered what fresh revelation was forthcoming.
“But first of all—Why do you speak of this symbol as the Seven of—was it Calvary? Yes. The Seven of Calvary. I have not seen that name in any newspaper.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Vignards?”
“No.”
So Martin gave a highly condensed version of Paul Lennox’s narrative. When he had finished, Kurt shook his head reflectively.
“It might be,” he said doubtfully. “History I know little of, and of heresies nothing. It might be. But never in Switzerland have I heard of these—what do you call them?—Vignards, nor of their Seven. And I do not think that Uncle Hugo had ever a political enemy.
“But now I shall tell you my story. You say you know about Lupe. You are clever, Martin, to have put little things together so. She is well, Mona tells me. I wish that I could myself see her. I need her—ah, terribly. But if someone were to suspect, and the General ever to learn—You will be secret, Martin?”
“You can trust me.”
“Good. You know perhaps that I have loved Lupe for many months—almost since I met her in the last Autumn. We have been …” He paused and groped for a word. Finding none and reassured by Martin’s sympathetic glance, he resumed. “… since the Christmas holidays. It happened just before she went to Los Angeles for Christmas. We have loved each other in that way ever since.” He paused again. Kurt was not a man who talked freely of his love life—which was one reason why Martin liked him—and he found this confession extremely painful.
“It was a month ago that she knew what had happened. We were both frightened. We thought that we had been so careful. And now—if it were learned, the General would go mad. And there would be a Skandal, and all would be terrible. We did not know what to do.
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