Figure Away

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  “You know what’s been goin’ on, don’t you? About Mary Randall an’ Eloise?”

  Bertha nodded. “Aunt Sara told us, but we haven’t told. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I figured one thing,” Asey said, “I figured another, an’ now, with luck, this nasty stuffs goin’ to solve them two murders, an’ it’s goin’ to solve’em before I go to bed tonight!”

  Chapter 19

  Hamilton stood just inside the Town Hall ball room and hummed under his breath the tune that Upjohn’s Merrymakers were swinging to the skies.

  He had hoped to attend the final grand ball in an entirely unofficial capacity, but he had reckoned without Asey Mayo.

  He finally located Kay Thayer, dancing with Zeb. He winked at her and jerked his head toward the corridor, and then leaned back against the wall as though his only problem in life was to prop up the rafters.

  The girl got it. Asey said she would.

  At the end of the dance Kay wandered over to him.

  “Hi, trooper,” she looked at the interested watchers and satisfied their curiosity. “Found my brief case yet?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hamilton said. “Will you come look at it?”

  He led her out the back way. “Look,” he said, “here’s a note from Asey. Read it, and then take this to Zeb Chase. I’ll wait for you here. Go grab a coat.”

  “Not leaving, are you?” Brinley asked Kay a few minutes later. “What about that other dance you promised me?”

  “Call from my editor,” Kay told him brightly. “Just a wage slave, that’s what. It’s a simply marvelous party, Mr. Brinley, and you deserve tons of credit for the way you planned it.” She smiled. “I must dash, but we’ll dance again when I come back – I don’t think!” she added to herself as she hurried down the corridor. One dance with J. Arthur was, she felt, sufficient punishment for anyone.

  Zeb watched her departure with increasing irritation. But Asey’s note, in his pocket, had been firm and definite. When Asey wanted him, Asey would tell him, and in the interval he was to mind his own business.

  “Has Asey really got anything?” Kay demanded as Hamilton turned the car toward the Leaches’ house.

  “I wouldn’t say this to everyone,” he told her, “but the guy’s losing his grip. He lands up at the hollow this afternoon late with a jar of beachplum jelly—”

  “With a what?”

  “You heard. And with that, he goes into action. And when Asey—”

  “Goes into action,” Kay said feelingly, “he goes into action. I know. I had some brief experience with it last night. What have you – what’s he been doing?” Hamilton sighed. “Go change your clothes. I’ll tell you later.”

  “I haven’t the key. Aunt Sara has—”

  “Oh, I forgot. I got one. We busted in here tonight, among other places.”

  “You what?”

  “Got in a window and took the spare key. Hustle. Asey’s waiting.”

  The darkness and quiet of the old house made Kay glad that the trooper was within call. She changed in a hurry and rushed back to the car.

  “Tell me more!”

  “Oh, we busted into Brinleys’ – damn dog, it bit Lane. He’s mad as hell. We been here twice. Asey, he’s burglarized the town offices, with all that gang of you below. He—”

  “But there were new locks on the offices, he told me so. After Prettyman got in. And say, what’s become of Tertius?”

  “Oh, he’s okay. Asey phoned him tonight. I don’t know why. No, locks don’t bother Asey. He went to sea with a burglar mate once, and he learned all the tricks. And the fellow he had with him helped—”

  “What fellow?”

  Hamilton shrugged. “Asey brought him from Boston—”

  “From Boston?”

  “Yeah. He’s been there today, didn’t you know? I don’t know the man and nobody told me who he is. While Asey was doing that, we combed around the hollow – oh, I almost forgot. We held up your photographer and we kidnapped General Philbrick.”

  “Buck – what for? And the General—” Kay shook her head. “Hamilton, this is pure Munchausening!”

  “No, sir,” Hamilton protested. “The General didn’t mind coming. He seemed to like it. Lane and I did the hold-up. We stole his rain coat and his pictures of the exhibition—”

  “I know it’s a lie,” Kay said. “Buck only has negatives, not pictures—”

  “Pictures,” Hamilton said firmly. “Local man developed’em. For the winners. Pictures taken yesterday. Lane and I put on long coats and tied handkerchiefs around our faces, and held him up in his car, just outside where he rooms. We tied him up. Little later we came along as police and undid him and gave him everything back. Asey’d already found out what he wanted. He was waiting in the bushes. Anyway, Buck thinks we’re swell. But what Asey wanted a lot of pictures of jelly and string beans for, nobody knows!”

  “Jelly!” Kay said. “It’s insane – hurry up. I can’t stand this suspense!”

  Inside the Randall house, Asey greeted her absentmindedly.

  “You, huh? ’Bout time. Wait outside, Ham. Sit down, Kay. Listen an’ don’t interrupt. You got a job.”

  She was white-faced when she came out on the porch a short while afterwards.

  “Did he tell you?” Hamilton asked eagerly. “Did he – hey – you’re lighting the cork end! Did he tell—”

  “Hamilton!” Asey’s voice had the quarterdeck ring to it.

  “Yes, sir!” Hamilton raced indoors. “Go to the Town Hall,” Asey said. “Just before the last dance, give these notes to Mr. an’ Mrs. Leach, Weston, Brinley, his wife, Win Billings, Madame Meaux, an’ Jane an’ Slade. Give this one to Zeb an’ see he starts right along. Corral the others an’ take’em to Aunt Sara’s, an’ see they go, an’ stay. Lane or someone’ll tell you what to do from there. Get’em all, an’ keep’em all, see? Beat it!” Of all the group assembled finally in Aunt Sara’s living room, no one was more bewildered than Hamilton himself.

  Lane came at last.

  “All here? Come along, please.”

  He marshalled them into their cars, whispered orders to Hamilton, and acted as a rear guard to the procession up to the hollow.

  “Now,” he said, “if you’ll come indoors—”

  “Why?” Sara demanded with asperity. “What is this nonsense? Why—”

  “Asey’s orders, ma’am,” Lane said with finality.

  Asey himself came out in a moment.

  “Sorry to keep you waitin’,” he said, “but on the whole, I thought it might be a good thing to have you all here together. Some things has got to be cleared up—”

  Another figure appeared behind him.

  “My God!” Brinley said in a choked voice. “Paterson!”

  “The auditor!” Sara’s voice was even more choked.

  “If you’ll all come in,” Asey said blandly, “maybe we can settle some things.”

  He was tremendously solicitous about finding seats for them all in the living room. Sara couldn’t help thinking how her grey cat had the same manner while he waited at a mouse hole – bland, casual, and apparently not a bit eager.

  “Now,” Asey said, “do let’s get this shortage fixed up first.”

  Sara and Jeff exchanged glances. “My fault,” Jeff said promptly. “I know. I’m getting too old – I – I might as well face it, I suppose. Whatever the amount is, I’ll make it good, Paterson. And then I’ll resign and let someone else take my place. On my word of honor, Sara and I have slaved over those figures – what’s that, Bessie?”

  Mrs. Brinley was muttering reproachful things under her breath.

  “I wouldn’t,” Asey said, “look quite so smug, Mrs. Brinley. Paterson’s found you an’ J. Arthur out.”

  J. Arthur’s shoulders sagged. He seemed to shrink.

  “Asey,” Weston said, “which ofem is it? For my part, I’ve worked over the books, and worked over’em, and—”

  “All Brinley,” Asey said. “He d
idn’t dare play with your figures as much as with Jeffs. You wrote that note to Slade, didn’t you, Brinley?”

  “I – yes, I did! But what about Jeff and Sara? Where were they on Monday night?” Brinley said. “Where were they when Mary Randall was killed? What—”

  “Think they’re so much!” Bessie said darkly. “Think they’re so much – where were they, and why should Arthur and I be persecuted by—”

  “Bessie,” Sara’s voice was like an icicle, “I’d stop, right there!”

  “Jeff Leach’s too old to try and run things!” Bessie said. “Blaming his dotage on Arthur! The old—”

  Aunt Sara stood up, and in a few brief words, she told Bessie Brinley what she had been aching to tell her for years. Not to be outdone, Bessie got up. Her voice rose and drowned Aunt Sara out.

  Asey silenced her.

  “We’re not gettin’ ahead, here. Let’s consider this shortage, an’ let’s consider the problem of motive – Bessie Brinley, shut up! First things seemed to be against the town, an’ then against Mary Randall, an’ then Jane – with so much planted on her, an’ then Eloise. As a matter of fact, we got just two motives. One’s money – the town’s money. The other’s pure hate. The money come first, an’ the hate come in later. The money come in because someone got ambitious, an’ the hate part’s mostly on account of Jane Warren – what’n time’s the matter, out there, Hamilton?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Hamilton said truthfully.

  “Go see—”

  Hamilton went outdoors. When he returned his face was drained of color.

  “Asey – that figure! Asey, look – look out the window!”

  The whole group rushed to the front door, and every head turned toward the four figures, more grotesque than ever under the moonlight.

  “What figure?” Sara said. “They – it’s moving!”

  “Nonsense,” Jeff said.

  But one of the figures was moving.

  It fell down, righted itself, and stood up again. The face was a glob of chalky white, apparently without any features at all. Suddenly it wheeled and ran with a peculiar swaying stride around to the back of the house.

  “The kitchen, Lane!” Asey yelled. “Cut it off, outside there! We’ll go through the house—”

  He avoided the skeptical eyes of Madame Meaux as he rushed out to the kitchen, with the rest following pell mell behind him.

  “Snap on the lights, Hamilton!” Asey ordered. “They – well, light that candle if they don’t work, then – my God!” There was no sight or trace of the beaver-hatted dummy, but at the head of the cellar stairs appeared an odd glaring light, and a smell that Mike Slade vaguely associated with fireworks. “What’n time,” Asey began, “is—”

  “Jane!” It was Eloise Randall’s voice that sounded from the cellar. “I really think – that is, of course—”

  Mike Slade blinked. He almost seemed to see Eloise before him, in that old checked skirt with the uneven hem and the baggy cardigan with the hole in the sleeve.

  “Eloise!” he said, and put out a hand to prop up Mrs. Brinley.

  “Of course if Jane really wants – I mean, one can’t really tell, can one? Can one, Weston? Weston thought, at least, I think he thought, that he killed me yesterday, but Weston – where are you, Weston—”

  Sara Leach swung around. Weston had been standing behind her and Jeff.

  “Weston!” Sara said. “He’s gone! He – he’s gone! He was right here, but he’s slipped away—”

  “Okay,” Asey said. “Lights, Hamilton. No, Mike, don’t follow. Come up from the cellar, Kay. Zeb, come out of the closet—”

  “Asey,” Sara said, “what – you don’t mean that it was Weston, do you? You – are you letting him get away?”

  A series of shots outside answered her question.

  In a moment, Lane came in.

  “I got as far as ‘I arrest,’ ” he said. “He said, we’d never get him alive, and we didn’t. There’s his gun. The silencer’s in his car. Here. He said to give it to you—”

  Asey turned away. It came over Madame Meaux that Weston was his cousin. After a second he turned back, as calm as ever. There, the soprano thought, was New England for you.

  “Look after things, Lane,” Asey said. “Kay, that was fine. You d’serve prizes for your imitatin’. Wash the dough off Zeb’s face. It drives me crazy. I’m sorry, the rest of you. We had to do it. We give him a chance to admit it, but we had to keep on an’ try his imagination – what is it, Sara?”

  “A chair,” Sara said. “And a glass of water. Asey I don’t – I can’t believe it!”

  She stared at Kay as the girl washed thick dough from Zeb’s face. The dummy’s clothes hung limply from his body. General Philbrick came up from the cellar.

  “How was the effect?” he inquired. “I think it worked, don’t you? Down there it was fine.”

  He took two pans to the sink and nonchalantly began to wash them. Already in his mind he saw the headlines. “Firework Magnate Aids Capture of Murderer. Philbrick’s Fireworks Help Detective.”

  “Asey,” Sara said, “I shall go mad – hurry and tell us, and get Jeff a chair. He’s shaking—”

  “Was it Weston’s accounts?” Jeff asked in a forced voice. “Weston’s?”

  “I don’t wonder,” Asey said, “you thought you was gettin’ old. Brinley’s been gyppin’ in a small way, to make you seem dumb, but Weston knew, an’ was doin’ a much better job on top of that. We got all the books tonight, from everywhere – town offices, your house, Weston’s, Brinley’s. Win Billings said it didn’t seem a town like this could be so much in the red, an’ for fun I went to Boston an’ got Paterson today. Didn’t know then which of you three selectmen it was. It’ll take Paterson weeks to straighten things out, but Weston’s plucked a hundred odd thousand, an’ judgin’ from his calculations, he—”

  “What?” Jeff said. “A hundred thousand?”

  “Over a period of years. He aimed to get as much more this week. He also had two steamship tickets for tomorrow night.”

  “No wonder,” Slade said grimly, “no wonder he wanted to make Old Home Week a success!”

  “What do you mean, two tickets?” Sara asked. “Why two?”

  “For him, an’ Eloise.”

  “For him and – and Eloise?” Sara said. “And Eloise? I – I never thought. But everyone thought that was off.”

  “It wasn’t. Jane, Eloise hated you, didn’t she? And she hated Mary, too. Get Cummings to tell you the name for it, but it’s a sort of general thwartedness. Eloise was ineffectual, an’ her mother wasn’t. It riled Eloise. She was also gettin’ along in years, an’ the state of single blessedness sort of went to her head.”

  “Then it was Eloise, and Weston, at night!” Jane said. “She told Mary it was me, meeting Mike!”

  “Eloise wormed out Weston’s plans to take his money an’ grab a boat,” Asey said. “She prob’ly said, me too. They planned to clean up an’ beat it, tomorrow. As time goes on, Eloise thinks how nice it’d be to make a clean sweep. An’ then Saturday, Tertius Prettyman brings over this policy of Mary’s. I called him, and he said Eloise seen it. Seen it was for Jane. It—”

  “For me?” Jane said. “Oh! I saw the policy around, but I never looked, or asked. I didn’t know that!”

  “That was the last straw,” Asey said, “for Eloise. She called Weston, and told him Mary Randall had found out. They’d have to kill her. I’m sure her murder was no part of their plannin’ before. So Weston calls me in – ”

  “What on earth for?” Sara demanded, “And what about the shootings, and the fires, and all the sabotage?”

  “Why does a magician have a pretty girl in his troupe?” Asey asked. “Why’s he tell funny stories? Just so you’ll be twice as amazed when the bird goes into the cage an’ melts away. Of course he called me. You don’t arrest the feller who calls the cop for help. Now he begun this sabotage with an idea of takin’ folks’ minds off the town accounts an�
�� such durin’ a crucial time. In case you get suspicious, here’s this menace to hang your suspicions on. That’s how it begun. Then Eloise tells Wes that her mother’s found out – Mary’s got to be killed.”

  “Did she know?” Sara asked.

  “I thought so at first, because Jane said she wanted to see me. I think now, she wanted to have me find out what was goin’ on up here nights. But it was Eloise’s opportunity, an’ she had someone else to do the dirty work. All the sabotage could pave the way for a murder, just as nice. They planned on the fireworks noise. An’ Weston went through with it for Eloise—”

  “Lady Macbeth,” Kay said.

  “Sort of. Now Weston come here from the fire, an’ he got back uptown in time to r’turn with Lane an’ the doc. General Philbrick’s told me how Wes popped in’ an’ out b’fore the fire, an’ after, sayin’ he had ‘Town Stuff to attend to. After the fire – which he set – at Slade’s, he cut over here, posed in the dummy, shoots Mary, an’ rips uptown. He stole Jane’s gun she give Slade, to have if he needed to plant clews. Used his own gun, though. Know where we found it?”

  “I know,” Jeff said. “At least, I guess. At the town offices, hanging over his desk.”

  “Exactly,” Asey said. “Nicest place to hide a gun, in full sight of all. That’s why Weston was so jittery when Tertius broke in there. After he found out all was well, he calmed down. It matches up with the shells we found in the dummy, his gun does. Oh, he had to plant things, Slade, because you didn’t react right. You went off the handle an’ forced his hand. He planted that note in your studio, even though Brinley wrote it.”

  “That laugh,” Zeb said, “What about that?”

  Lane passed over a small, oddly shaped metal object.

  “This,” Asey said, “this thing here. It was a signal for Eloise – an’ partly just to mock us, later. Where’d you get it, Ham?”

  “Weston’s pocket. It’s like the one you found in Eloise’s things.”

  “Nice signal,” Asey said. “Not somethin’ that’d attract a crowd. All right, to get back. Weston plants shells an’ Jane’s gun. We don’t fall for’em. He comes here to try an’ get his own shells from the dummy’s pocket. He gets thwarted by Kay an’ me an’ the troopers. He’s gettin’ scared, an’ I think he’s beginnin’ to figure Eloise double-crossed him an’ that Mary Randall didn’t know a thing. That chase let you out, Jeff, an’ Brinley, just from the physical end of it. Now, we get to day before yest’day.”