The Dead Can Tell

by Helen Reilly

  The Scotsman entered a booth near the cashier’s desk. Acting Captain Conley answered his ring. As McKee listened, his eyes began to shine.

  The delegates were assembling. Miss Dodd and her niece, Kit Blaketon, had gone to Pat Somers’ home on East Eighty-first Street. Clifford Somers had turned up there after several speeches in the district. Pat himself had arrived a few minutes later. Steven Hazard and Cristie Lansing were on their way down from Ben Riley’s to join the gathering. The tailing detective had heard Hazard give the cab driver Pat Somers’ address.

  Pat, the strong man. McKee got what it meant. These people were all frightened. They were beginning to move. They were going to Pat for advice, counsel, perhaps an attempt at a fix, perhaps to get him to tell them how to play it. They all held cards, that seemed now a certainty. What those cards were it was up to him to discover.

  He paid his check and left the restaurant. Tod-hunter met him on the street near the politician’s high-stooped brownstone house crushed between two apartments. He saw several of his other men stationed unobtrusively up and down the block. Accompanied by Todhunter, he mounted the steps and rang the bell. A grim-visaged elderly woman in a violent plaid silk dress opened the door. The Scotsman asked for Pat Somers.

  The woman said, “I don’t know. If you’ll wait here, I’ll see.”

  McKee didn’t wait. He was just behind the woman as she went along the hall and opened the door of Pat Somers’ office. The Scotsman got a quick glimpse of the room and its occupants. Pat was seated behind the desk at the far side, big, solid and quiet. Mary Dodd and her niece, Kit, were in chairs to the left of the desk. Pat’s brother and Kit’s fiancé, Assemblyman Somers, stood leaning against the ornate and hideous marble mantelpiece on Pat’s right. There was an air of arrested tension at the elderly woman’s entrance. Pat looked up at her. “Yes, Julia,” he said.

  The woman responded with a jerk of her thumb hallward and a whisper in Pat’s ear. Somers pushed back his chair and rose. He strode heavily across the worn rug. The others stared, even Cliff Somers. His gaze, fastened moodily on the brass fender in front of the empty grate, lifted. He followed his brother with his eyes.

  McKee stepped over the threshold. Pat Somers pulled erect with a jerk. Hot blood rushed into Pat’s face. His eyes were blue ice under scowling brows. Looking fixedly at the Scotsman he said in a casual voice, “Get the hell out of here, McKee. You’ve got no business here. This is my house. Get out! “

  The Scotsman returned his gaze measure for measure. He said suavely, “I am fully aware of your rights, Mr. Somers, and you know me well enough to be sure that I am also aware of the rights of a police officer in pursuit of his duty.” McKee’s eyes continued to hold Pat’s.

  Somers scowled. “Duty, hell. Out, McKee. Your duties don’t include this kind of thing.”

  The Scotsman shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong.” His cavernous brown gaze left the big man in front of him, traveled slowly around the room as he said, “I’m here on business. That business is an investigation into murder.”

  “Murder!” The word came from Pat. It was backed up by the same shocked inquiry in the three white faces behind him. The small comfortable study was very still.

  “Yes,” McKee answered steadily, “the murder, what I believe to have been the murder, of Sara Hazard in the early hours of the morning of August 25th.”

  He turned. Steven Hazard and Cristie Lansing had entered the house while he was talking. They had heard what he said. They stood, side by side, not ten feet away, immobile, frozen, the breath stopped in their throats. Steven Hazard made a strangled sound that was between a cry and an oath. His lips clamped themselves tightly together.

  Cristie Lansing’s white lids fell. She swayed. McKee said with salutary sharpness, “Come in, Mr. Hazard. You’re just in time. You too, Miss Lansing. We’ve all got to have a little talk.”

  That brought the girl back. McKee held the door open, waved them ahead of him into the room. Pat Somers exchanged a look with Steven. There was warning in it. He pulled out a chair for Cristie, resumed his own seat behind the desk. Mary Dodd waved to the new arrivals. There was pain in her tightly compressed lips as she looked at Steven. The vibrant red-haired Kit Blaketon kept on staring at the floor and Cliff Somers continued to devote his attention to the minarets of the gleaming brass fender.

  McKee remained standing. They all waited. A black cat strolled out from behind Pat’s desk, yawned widely, and extended itself full length in the middle of the worn rug.

  About to speak, McKee paused. There was a rap on the closed door. It opened and Captain Pierson entered the room. Pierson advanced to the Scotsman and delivered a whispered message. McKee nodded. He turned to Clifford Somers.

  “Assemblyman,” he said, “I’d like to talk to you alone in another room.”

  The young man looked at him. His face sharpened, hardened. He didn’t say anything; followed McKee out of the office without a word. There was no response from any of the others. Sit tight was the general attitude. They were sitting very tight indeed.

  McKee paused for a word to Pierson and Tod-hunter in the hall. Pierson entered the office the Scotsman had vacated. Todhunter moved toward the front of the house and the Inspector went, behind Clifford Somers, into a big, old-fashioned, gloomy, parlor on the far side of the house.

  The Scotsman took out a cigarette and looked over it at Somers. He said, “There’s no use my wasting your time, Assemblyman, or letting you waste mine. What, exactly, were your relations with the late Sara Hazard?”

  There was a belligerent scowl on Clifford Somers’ handsome, boyish face. He stared the Scotsman full in the eye, thrust his hands into the pockets of his gray sack suit and said, “None.”

  McKee recognized the qualities that had enabled Pat to make his young brother a success in his district. Cliff Somers had daring, courage, a good presence and a capacity for lying convincingly. Without the knowledge that had just been imparted to him by Pierson, he might have been deceived by the trenchant brevity of the young man’s reply.

  “That won’t do, Mr. Somers. In the first place, it isn’t true.” His tone changed. There was a ring to it as he continued swiftly, “What were you doing in the neighborhood of the East River Drive and Franklin Place in the early hours of the morning on which Sara Hazard went through the fence into the river?” The young Assemblyman’s jaw thrust itself forward. “Nuts and double nuts,” he replied calmly.

  “Nevertheless you were there.” McKee was affable. “Patrolman Kinney saw you there and spoke to you.”

  Somers couldn’t control his color. Pallor circled lips he managed to hold steady as he said, “All right. So what? This is campaign time. I represent this district. I was at a meeting at the Penobscott Club, dropped into the St. Vrain’s party for a while, met some of the fellows later and had a few drinks. I started home, saw the crowd and stopped to see what it was all about. What’s wrong with that?”

  McKee said, “I think you’d better sit down. There are a number of other questions I want to ask you.” Clifford Somers didn’t sit down. He paced the floor while the Scotsman went on with that exhaustive examination in the big gloomy parlor.

  In the office on the other side of the hall, Pierson crossed and recrossed his solid knees under the covert scrutiny of the people seated there in silence. Pat Somers’ cool blue gaze cupped and steadied the men and women around him in a rough semicircle.

  Cigarette smoke, an occasional murmur from one to the other. At the end of three or four minutes, Pat rose from behind his desk and walked to the door. Pierson let him go. He had his orders. In the little room next to the office, Todhunter slipped quietly behind one of the heavy velvet curtains as Pat Somers came in.

  He watched the big man through a chink in the folds of the faintly dusty maroon velvet. Pat Somers closed the door softly behind him. He crossed to a safe in a corner, knelt down and twirled the dial. The door of the safe swung open. Pat reached in and took out something wrapp
ed in brown paper. He laid the parcel on top of the safe, ripped off the paper, crumpled it up and threw it into a trash basket. His back was turned and the little detective couldn’t see what it was that he had removed from the safe.

  Todhunter wanted to see. The room was very still. The slightest sound would put Pat Somers on his guard. Todhunter edged forward, bringing the curtains with him. Pat was taking a penknife out of his pocket. He shot open the blade.

  Todhunter put the curtains behind him and moved noiselessly across the floor until he was directly in back of Pat Somers. He took a quick step sideways and his hand flashed out.

  Pat Somers was big, bulky and powerful, Todhunter was a mere wisp of a man. When necessity required it, the little detective could move like lightning. That was what he did then, fading across to the door, through it and into the hall. He made a bee line for the parlor before Pat Somers really understood what had happened.

  Ten minutes later McKee re-entered Pat’s office. He had dismissed Clifford as soon as Todhunter appeared. The Scotsman was followed by the mousy little detective carrying a square black box. “Plug it there,” McKee ordered, pointing to an outlet. Tod-hunter laid the box tenderly on the floor and obeyed.

  McKee nodded his satisfaction, turned his survey on the stiffness of the motionless watchers. Anger, astonishment, curiosity, suspense in that loosely assorted group. No one spoke.

  McKee stood erect. His glance touched each one of them in turn. He told them about the anonymous letter. He swung on Steven Hazard. “You lied to me, Mr. Hazard, about your presence on the scene at the time of your wife’s death. You were there. So were you, Miss Lansing. So,” he shifted to Clifford Somers, “were you, Assemblyman.” His gaze rested on Mary Dodd. “You cautioned your niece,” he indicated Kit Blaketon, stiff white face framed in the flaming hair, “to keep evidence from the police.” He looked at Pat Somers, smoking a cigarette in short quick puffs. “A few minutes ago Mr. Somers, you deliberately tried to destroy evidence, vital evidence concerning the killing of Sara Hazard.”

  He went on with a tired certainty more compelling than any threat. “Sara Hazard was murdered. The details of exactly how it was done are not yet clear but there was a motive for her murder. I am now going to show you a motive, a motive that could have influenced everybody in this room. Sara Hazard came to this house and paid Clifford Somers a visit on the night of the St. Vrain party. From what I have been able to gather, she left the party after telephoning to Clifford Somers at the Penobscott Club to meet her here, returning to the St. Vrains’ afterwards.”

  The Scotsman didn’t address any of them personally, spoke as though he were instructing a jury.

  “Kit Blaketon followed Mrs. Hazard here from the St, Vrains’, saw her enter this house. Sara Hazard had a conversation with Clifford Somers that night. Kit Blaketon was probably outside and couldn’t hear it, but Pat Somers could. Pat Somers had come home unexpectedly from Albany.

  “Pat listened to the conversation between his brother and the dead woman. He not only listened to it, he made a record of it on a machine he kept handy in the next room, which is connected with this by a hearing and a recording device. Quite natural for him to have such an arrangement and such a machine. When you’re in politics you have to make sure bargains are kept. Gratitude so often transforms itself into a welch. Well, Pat Somers was in the other room when he heard his brother and Sara Hazard talking. He turned on the recording device.

  “That record I am now going to play for you.” There was a moment of stricken silence. McKee turned to Todhunter. He nodded. The little detective pushed a lever on the black box. The silence fled. It was broken by the faint scratching whirr of the needle as the record that Pat Somers had tried to destroy a few minutes earlier began to go round.

  IX

  “Yes, Mr. Somers. It was very interesting.”

  Sara Hazard’s recorded voice was audible in every corner of the room.

  To more than one of those people, wooden dolls in an arc, the vision of Sara Hazard herself, as she had been on that distant August night, recreated itself in detail, the black and gold of an expertly executed evening gown following the lines of her long slim body, the curve of her breast, golden hair curling away from the narrow chiseled face. The record continued to revolve, gave out the creak of a man settling back in his chair. Clifford Somers’ voice came from the machine.

  “All right, baby. Go on with your story. I always did like fairy tales.”

  Sara Hazard’s recorded tones were liquid honey.

  “Does the name Dr. Karl Dennison mean anything? to you?”

  From Clifford Somers, “If it does, what about Dennison?” The demand was rough.

  Sara Hazard: “Nothing, nothing, except that I happen to know Dr. Dennison rather well. One night he got drunk, got maudlin, started confessing. He knew the woman’s husband, you see. That’s why he felt so badly about it. You know the woman I mean?”

  The whirring needle filled a pause. Sara Hazard’s voice continued, bearing down. “The woman I mean is, or rather was, Mrs. Trembath, Claire Trembath. Too bad she had to die so suddenly after that rather strange operation. Before it was performed she told the doctor all about the very uncomfortable situation in which she found herself. The man who was responsible, and it wasn’t her husband, had a good deal to answer for.”

  The Scotsman watched Cliff Somers, seated beside his brother. His head was bent. The room was cool. Perspiration stood out on the younger man’s forehead, rolled unchecked down cheeks that were drawn, colorless.

  The synchronization of his present posture with the reply coming out of the amplifier was striking. His recorded voice was a mutter:

  “I was only a kid. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know it was going to turn out that way.”

  Sara Hazard’s answer was gently commiserating. Her living voice had been stilled forever but it reached forward out of the past and struck again, vibrant with threat: “It wouldn’t be very nice, would it, Mr. Assemblyman Somers, if this particular incident in your amorous past should become public property? After all, as an accessory before the fact, it is a crime, you know; you would be liable. They mightn’t prosecute you, but if the District Attorney went after the doctor, your appearance on the witness stand would be a big help to you in the coming campaign, wouldn’t it?”

  The coming campaign. The Scotsman’s eyes were grim. The campaign that was now on. The needle continued relentlessly to travel round. There were sounds as well as voices. There was the sound of a chair being pushed back as though Clifford Somers had jumped to his feet. “You blackmailing...” The voice on the record broke.

  Sara Hazard interrupted him coolly. “You hit the nail right on the head. I want money. I want a thousand dollars to start with, and I want the thousand tomorrow.”

  Clifford Somers, after another pause: “All right, baby, you’ve got me behind the eight ball. But where the hell would I get that kind of dough on such short notice?”

  Sara Hazard said, “Pat’s got plenty, hasn’t he?”

  McKee’s gaze shifted to Pat Somers. His face, the thoughts going on behind it, were unreadable. But he was suffering. So was Kit Blaketon. She looked like a reproduction of herself in papier-mâché, a distorted and lifeless reproduction.

  On the record the dead woman continued: “Pat trusts you. He won’t suspect anything. You can give him some song and dance. I realize you wouldn’t want Pat to know that his beloved younger brother, the rising politician, has gotten himself in such an unsavory mess.”

  It was tough to take. Clifford Somers flushed darkly. He stared steadily at the floor. This time his demeanor contrasted with the reply coming from the amplifier: “O.K., lady. I’ll see what I can do. But you’re playing a dangerous game and you’d better watch your step.”

  A scornful little laugh from Sara Hazard. “I love danger. But I’m going to tell you something. You try to double-cross me and you’ll get yourself into a real jam. You understand? I want that thousan
d tomorrow, not later than six o’clock.”

  Another whirring lull. Clifford Somers’ response on that August night must have been a nod because Sara Hazard said, “All right. See you later.”

  There was the sound of a door closing. That was all. Todhunter pushed the lever. The whirling disk came to a stop.

  The stillness was profound. It was dissipated by Pat. Pat took out his handkerchief and sneezed into it resoundingly. At the small homely noise they all stirred. Cliff Somers sat up slowly. His muscles relaxed. Something like sanity returned to his eyes. He made an effort to swallow. Sinewy fingers loosened the collar at his throat.

  The others continued to sit as they were. Cristie Lansing was huddled down in her chair. Her eyes under the delicate black brows were cloudy with distaste and some other and more baffling emotion. Steven Hazard’s long jaw had a bitter brooding slant to it. The tell-tale vein in his temple had thickened. His dead wife had been made to speak again and to brand herself publicly out of her own mouth as the blackmailer she was.

  Kit Blaketon’s pointed face framed in elfin red had a crumpled look as though she were trying to rouse herself from sleep, as she moved the green eyes from a steel engraving on the opposite wall to the man to whom she was engaged and from whom she had been estranged.

  It was Mary Dodd who spoke, her dark head with its plume of white lifted. She didn’t seem to be addressing anyone in the room as she said, nausea and exhaustion freighting her voice, “It was all so unnecessary. We...”

  Pat Somers didn’t let her complete the sentence. He did erupt then. He cut Mary Dodd short with a deep, savage “So that’s that, McKee. And now what do you propose to do about it?”

  There were a number of things the Scotsman intended to do. He didn’t intend to tell Pat Somers what they were. He took testimony briskly from all of them, individually and together as to where they had been and what they had done on the night of August 24th and the early morning of the 25th.