The Charlatan Murders

by Jennifer Berg

  Walter took a deep breath, and with an effort, he asked. “Where are the files now?”

  “I burnt them,” Paul said. “As soon as I got home that night. I’m sorry to all of you, but I’m especially sorry to you, Walter. I’ve put you through a lot.”

  “But you must have realized that stealing the files wouldn’t protect you forever,” Riggs said, “And you still needed money, so you still have a motive for killing your mother, and since Miss Sinclair was your accomplice, you have a motive for killing her too.”

  Before Paul could object, the door opened, and Mrs. Peabody came in with a coffee tray. “I’ll just set this by you, Mrs. Shrubb, shall I? There’s a soda pop for young Alex. I don’t have a proper meal prepared, but I will bring in some sandwiches in a little while. Would that be all right?” Julia agreed, and as soon as the coffee was properly arranged, Mrs. Peabody was gone again.

  Riggs took a deep breath. “By now, I’m sure you all realize that each member of the Abbott family had a motive for killing Mrs. Abbott.” He turned to Rosemary, “And you, too, Miss Miller.”

  Rosemary objected, but the inspector went on. “There is a great deal of money at stake for the four Abbott children, the two spouses, and Miss Miller. Of course, money isn’t the only motive for murder,” he added, looking at Walter and Freddy. “Hatred and revenge can be powerful motives. Often, the best-planned crimes are not committed for financial gain, but to end a deep-seated hatred.”

  Victoria spilled a drop of coffee on her skirt, and Paul gave her a napkin. She thanked him and dabbed up the spill. Rosemary took out a hairpin and repined a lock of hair that had slipped.

  “We understand the dire situation,” Marcus replied coolly. “Fortunately, the murder was committed early on Sunday morning, so most of us have alibis—”

  Riggs was shaking his head. “Your doctor gave us his best guess, but our doctor estimates that your mother was murdered between eleven p.m. and three o’clock in the morning.”

  Julia said, “But we were all here until midnight.”

  “Which is why none of you have an alibi.”

  “Alex left early,” Marcus said.

  Riggs nodded. “Yes, but like any of you, he could have come back later.”

  “What about the thermostat?” Freddy asked. “If the room was warmer, that could affect the doctor’s estimate, right?”

  “It would have taken time to warm the room up,” Riggs explained. “And the murderer would have had to be here later to turn it back down again. No, I’m afraid that doesn’t eliminate any of you, especially since you each have a key to this house, except Paul, of course, but he had arranged an unlocked window. And since you all had your own keys, why did someone unlock the French doors in the dining room after Miss Holt had locked them?”

  “Donna must have made a mistake,” Marcus said. “It’s an easy mistake to make if someone isn’t familiar with a particular lock.”

  Julia nodded. “Yes, and mistakes do happen.”

  “I brought Miss Holt with me today so she could have another look at the lock.” Riggs left the room, and a moment later, he came back with Donna and invited her to sit down. Donna looked uncomfortable, but Julia insisted that she sit and poured her a cup of coffee.

  “Oh, my gosh, the coffee is cold,” Victoria said as she jumped to her feet. “I’ll just pop into the kitchen and ask Mrs. Peabody for a fresh pot, and I’ll make a telephone call.” And before anyone could reply, Victoria was gone.

  Riggs strode to the window and rapped the pane with his knuckles. From there, he motioned to Inspector Fisher, who was near the kitchen terrace. Fisher nodded and signaled the policeman in the driveway, who signaled the other officers. The house was secure.

  “Hey, what’s all that about?” Walter demanded.

  Inspector Riggs smoothed his mustache, but he ignored Walter and turned to Donna. “So, what’s your verdict, Miss Holt? You’ve inspected the lock again. Are you still certain that you locked it on Saturday night?”

  “It works just the way I thought it did.” Donna nodded. “I think I locked it.”

  “Inspector Riggs,” said Julia, “I’ve been thinking about Camille, and I think I may know why she was murdered.”

  Everyone turned to stare at her. Alex’s jaw dropped, and Marcus frowned. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Camille said something at my house on Wednesday,” Julia explained. “It was a strange remark. I thought it was funny at the time, but now that Camille’s dead, I can’t help but wonder if she was addressing the murderer.”

  Freddy snapped his fingers excitedly. “That’s right. I remember she said something strange; it sounded almost like a threat! Just after Donna left, Camille was talking about the investigation, and she said, ‘If I had anything to hide, I would be very careful.’”

  “Yes, I remember that, too!” Alex exclaimed.

  “But after what Paul has just told us,” Marcus ventured, “don’t you think that the remark was intended for him? After all, Camille had helped Paul steal the file, and she was warning him to be careful.”

  “That’s how I took it,” Paul agreed. “She’d helped me, and she was lording it over me.”

  Julia stood up. “But if the murderer was in the room, he may have thought Camille was speaking directly to him. For all we know, Camille may have known, or guessed, who the murderer was.”

  “Or maybe Camille really was talking to Paul,” Freddy pointed out, “but the murderer thought it was a threat.”

  Alex, who had been watching Rosemary carefully, turned to Riggs. “Inspector, I heard that my grandmother argued with a woman last Wednesday. Do you know who it was?”

  “I wish I did,” Riggs said.

  Victoria slipped back into the room and sat down on the sofa.

  “What about Rosemary?” Alex blurted.

  “Me?” Rosemary turned in surprise. Alex met her gaze, and Rosemary sat up straight and moved to the edge of her seat. “Why would I have argued with Mrs. Abbott?” she asked.

  “I know you’re hiding something,” Alex said. “I overheard you. You were talking on the telephone. And you kept mentioning a secret, a secret that you weren’t allowed to tell!”

  The room fell silent. Everyone looked at the secretary, and she sat in the uncomfortable stillness until Victoria spoke.

  “Rosemary didn’t argue with your grandmother last Wednesday because she wasn’t at home at the time. I know she wasn’t here.”

  Everyone turned to stare at Victoria.

  “You?” Alex said.

  “But then…you…but you were out of town,” Walter said.

  “I saw your mother on my way to the airport,” Victoria explained. “I flew out of town Wednesday night, and I gave my talk at the convention on Friday. But you all might as well know that I left the convention early. I flew back to Seattle on Saturday night.”

  “Saturday night?” Paul marveled. “Then you don’t have an alibi at all.”

  “No. I don’t have an alibi,” Victoria admitted.

  Alex shook his head. “But that only means that you had an opportunity the same as the rest of us. It doesn’t mean you’re guilty. Meanwhile, Rosemary really does have a secret. She’s been hiding and lying about something. She could be a Communist spy, and we have a right to know the truth!”

  Rosemary was holding a handkerchief, and she twisted it around her finger. At last, she took a deep breath and exhaled. “I promised never to tell anyone,” she said quietly. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter now. Mrs. Abbott didn’t hire me because of my secretarial skills. In fact, before I came to her, I had hardly even touched a typewriter. I agreed to work as her personal secretary, and we invented the idea of my references. But the real reason that Mrs. Abbott hired me is that I’m a nurse.”

  Paul’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “But why should that be a secret?” Freddy demanded.

  Rosemary smoothed out her skirt. “Shortly before your father died, your mother was dia
gnosed with an unusual heart condition. Her doctor felt that as long as she had careful monitoring and the appropriate medicine, she could live for years. Your mother was absolutely determined to keep it a secret. She felt that if anyone knew, sooner or later, everyone would know, and she would lose control of the company. She needed a nurse to monitor her health, but even Mrs. Peabody didn’t know.”

  “That sounds like Mother,” Freddy said. “Controlling to the last.”

  Riggs rubbed his neck. “And that explains why you were disposing of medicine bottles.

  “Is that why you were upstairs on Saturday night?” Donna asked.

  “I usually checked Mrs. Abbott’s pulse before she goes to bed, but that night I forgot, and by the time I went to check on her, she was already asleep,” Rosemary explained. “I was a hospital nurse during the War, and I had experience with heart conditions. The right medicine, in the right amount, was often the difference between life and death. Your mother swore her doctor to secrecy, and as a term of my employment, I had to promise that I would never tell anyone about her condition. In return, she promised that she would leave me a legacy in her will.”

  “But she was considering changing her will,” Riggs said. “Maybe she realized that you were lying to her.”

  “What lie?” Julia asked.

  “Rosemary doesn’t have an aunt,” Riggs said.

  Rosemary turned to him angrily. “That doesn’t mean I killed her!”

  “But it does mean that you had something to lose if she changed her will,” the inspector insisted. “Mrs. Abbott was determined to ruin Freddy’s business, Paul had been stealing from the company, and Marcus—well, it seems that Mr. Shrubb has been having some troubles, too.”

  Everyone looked at Marcus Shrubb, and he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead.

  “It seems that your company is in hard times,” Riggs said. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Shrubb? And as a senior executive, you decided to invest your entire savings to save them from ruin. I suppose that you believed that you’d be able to turn things around. And if you had succeeded, you would have become the primary owner of one of the largest logging companies in the Northwest. But it didn’t work out that way, and now most of your net worth has vanished. When the company goes bankrupt, which I understand is bound to happen in the next couple of months, you are going to lose everything. That’s more or less the situation, isn’t it?”

  Alex’s jaw dropped open. “Dad, is that true? Is that why we had to keep Grandmother happy? Because we’re about to be broke?”

  Julia shook her head quietly. “For heaven’s sake, Marcus, why didn’t you tell me?”

  For the first time in years, Marcus Shrubb faltered. He stood there stupidly, apologetically, holding his handkerchief and not knowing where to begin or what to say. Finally, Julia stood up and moved to the back of the room. Sitting alone in a chair away from the rest of them, she rested her face in her hands and fell silent.

  Victoria spoke up. “I don’t have an alibi, so you might as well know the worst of my visit with Mrs. Abbott. I didn’t want to see her, but she was very adamant that we meet. She insisted. But I had hardly sat down when she called me a gold-digger, a charlatan, and a filthy foreigner; she even accused me of having been a traitor during the War, and,” Victoria glanced at Walter, “she said that Walter was divorcing me.”

  No one said a word.

  Walter looked up at Victoria. His hands were clenched, and his brow was furrowed, but he didn’t look away.

  “At that moment, I wanted to hurt Mrs. Abbott,” Victoria admitted. “Instead, I gave her my two cents worth. I told her what I thought of her as a human being and as a mother. I called her an amoral charlatan and a lot of other things that weren’t as nice. And I left this house with the intention of never seeing her again. So, the Inspector is perfectly right when he says that I had a motive for murdering Mrs. Abbott.” Victoria stood up. “We need to solve these murders. And we’re going to solve them right now.”

  “How?” Julia said.

  “By answering a much smaller question,” Victoria said. “Why was pepper spilt on Paul’s kitchen floor?”

  Chapter Forty-One: Victoria Takes Charge

  Everyone sat in silence. Even Riggs wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Good God,” Paul sputtered. “This isn’t some dime-store paperback mystery, with match stubs and lost buttons. Camille was murdered, and the pepper doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Except that the murderer knocked the pepper shaker on the floor,” Victoria said, “and we need to know why.”

  Alex frowned. “Well, it was probably just an accident.”

  “That would be the simplest explanation,” Riggs agreed.

  “But it’s the wrong explanation.” Victoria shook her head. “Who are we looking for?”

  She looked around the room, but no one answered, so Victoria took a pencil out of her hair and twirled it between her fingers, then she tapped it on the end table, and she whispered, “We’re looking for someone who needed access here on Saturday night, although it proved to be circumstantially unnecessary. Aber warum? Why? Because Camille had provided another point of access? But the murderer didn’t know that. And we’re also looking for a person who Camille would have admitted to her apartment…”

  Riggs rubbed his chin, but he didn’t interrupt.

  From the kitchen, the telephone rang twice and stopped.

  “And, could it be…” Victoria nodded and spoke faster. “Yes, it could. And that’s how we know that same person understood Camille’s threat because they had murdered Mrs. Abbott. Aber natürlich! Listen, I mean…no. Let me think for a moment. We have to put things in order.” Victoria stood up and paced the room, tapping the pencil in her palm absorbed in her own thoughts. “Of course, it all fits together…” she paced and kept speaking quickly under her breath.

  Mrs. Peabody came to the doorway. “Excuse me, Inspector, the police chief is on the telephone. He wants to speak with you.”

  “Could you ask the officer outside to take it?” Riggs asked.

  But Mrs. Peabody shook her head. “Your chief was very specific; and not at all polite. He demands to speak to you personally, right now.”

  Riggs had lost. He frowned and started for the door, but Victoria held out her hand to stop him. “We can wrap this case up in ten minutes,” she said.

  Riggs leaned close to her and whispered, “If I don’t take that call, I won’t have this case or a job.”

  “Ten minutes,” she repeated.

  Riggs stepped back and looked at Victoria for several moments.

  If you have to gamble…

  Riggs turned to the cook. “Mrs. Peabody, please tell the police chief that we’re wrapping up the case. Tell him I’ll telephone him as soon as I’ve made an arrest. And as soon as you’re off the phone, please come in here.”

  Mrs. Peabody left, and they waited in silence until she returned. “Your chief is none too happy, Inspector,” she informed him. “He said he’s coming here now.”

  Riggs glanced at his watch. “Thank you, Mrs. Peabody. Please sit down.” The cook sat down, and Riggs turned to Victoria, “Okay, Bell. Let’s hear it.”

  Victoria looked around the room at their anxious faces, and she took a deep breath. “We’ve all been assuming that Mrs. Abbott was murdered either for her money or out of some emotional rage or revenge or something.”

  Everyone agreed, and Victoria continued. “Also, it seems likely that Miss Sinclair was murdered because she threatened, or at least she appeared to have threatened, the murderer. Of course, that part is absolutely correct, but what if we’ve been looking at it from the wrong angle?”

  Julia left her chair in the corner and sat down on the sofa. “So, Camille’s murder didn’t have anything to do with our mother’s murder?”

  “Oh, no, Camille was definitely killed because of what she knew,” Victoria explained. “But I don’t think she realized how important her inform
ation was. You see, Camille knew why Mrs. Abbott was murdered.”

  Riggs frowned. “You’re saying the motive for Mrs. Abbott’s murder wasn’t money?”

  “Oh, it was money,” said Victoria. “This has always been about money. But it wasn’t Mrs. Abbott’s money.”

  “Do you mean the family company?” Walter demanded. “Or this house?”

  Victoria didn’t answer him. Instead, she turned to Miss Holt. “Donna, in the time you spent with Camille, did she ever confide in you?”

  “Confide? You mean like telling me her secrets?”

  “Nothing too personal,” Victoria clarified. “Just the usual sort of gossip. While you were planning the decor of the penthouse, the two of you must have talked about other things. She must have mentioned little things about her life, like her previous love interests, professional rivalries, or other little details from her past?”

  “Well, yes.” Donna nodded. “She did tell me some things, but I don’t think that any of them were secrets.In fact, I think they were more or less common knowledge. She had travelled a lot, and she’d had romances, all of the usual things. I’m sure her friends knew far more intimate details than she ever told me.”

  “How is this important?” Paul asked Victoria.

  “It’s important because of what it says about our murderer. Whoever murdered Mrs. Abbott had access to this house during the party, but they had to unlock the dining room door to ensure that they could still come back in the middle of the night,” Victoria explained. “But Miss Sinclair’s murder was entirely different. She was murdered while she sat awake in broad daylight in her living room. That means that the murderer knew Miss Sinclair well enough to be admitted into her apartment, but not well enough to know for certain that no one else was there.”

  “How do you figure that?” Freddy asked.

  Riggs answered, “Because whoever murdered Miss Sinclair had to check the apartment first to make sure that no one else was at home.”

  Victoria nodded. “And they were in such a rush that they knocked down the pepper shaker as they hurried through the kitchen, but they couldn’t spare the time to clean it up.”