by Q. Patrick
* * *
After the bombshell of that announcement, the rest of what Trant had to say seemed infinitely unimportant. Leslie’s thoughts scudded at random. So that was why Robert had kept stalling Morton and Bidlake’s enquiries about his second novel. That was why he had sent that large cheque to Bernard’s mother—not out of generosity but for conscience money. Robert Boyer had pretended to be Bernard’s friend, when in fact he had stolen from him the fortune and glory which should have been his.
Robert had done that: Robert with whom she had so very nearly let herself fall in love!
Lieutenant Trant’s voice ran on. “Now you can see why Mr. Boyer broke into Miss Cole’s apartment last night. He knew I’d got onto the lead of that French manuscript. He was hoping against hope that I would think it was just part of the French translator’s draft and attach no suspicions to it. And yet he knew Miss Cole had something in her possession which would blow that theory higher than a kite. She had a copy of the French edition, with a handwritten inscription by the translator. Comparison of the manuscript pages with the French edition would, of course, have shown a difference in text. But that wasn’t all. If ever the handwriting of the Bernard manuscript were compared with the translator’s inscription, we would have seen at once that they were different, and would have been given a clue to the fact that the sheets of manuscript in Miss Lucas’ possession were not part of the translation. That book was far too dangerous to leave lying around. That’s why Mr. Boyer broke into this apartment last night.”
The lieutenant was looking at Leslie. “If you go to the bookshelf, Miss Cole, you’ll see that your inscribed copy of the French edition of The Story of Mark is—gone.”
The flat, unbroken pause which followed was almost unbearable to Leslie—like some weird silence in a dream, heralding a phantasmagorial end of the world.
Lieutenant Trant had risen to his feet. Robert had risen too. The two men stood there, staring at each other, Trant inscrutable, Robert white and haggard—but perfectly steady.
“Well, Mr. Boyer, if you have anything to say. I’m afraid I’m bound to warn you it can be used in evidence.”
Robert threw out his hands. The twisted ghost of a smile moved his lips. “I’ve nothing to say—nothing at all.”
* * *
Lieutenant Trant and his policemen had gone, taking Robert Boyer with them. Vaguely, like phantoms in a dream, Leslie was conscious of Dave and Yvonne departing; of Faith squeezing her hand and then slipping away after Jimmy. She was left alone with Gordy, feeling spent and numb as if something really important had gone out of her life.
But she was glad Gordy was there. “Don’t let it get you, darling.” His voice sounded quiet and tender. “I’ll find you another tall handsome author.”
Leslie felt suddenly sorry for herself. She sniffed. “But, Gordy, it’s so frightful. Robert, of all people! I can’t believe— And I don’t want another tall handsome author.”
“Then how about a nice agent?”
Leslie looked up, her small face bewildered and owl-like. “Oh, Gordy, I don’t know what I want. I...”
“I know what you want.” Gordy moved closer, smiling down at her crookedly. “I bet you had no breakfast and it’s lunch time. I’m going to find some food for you.” A long
moment they looked at each other. Gradually the faint suggestion of a smile stirred in Leslie’s eyes.
“All right, Gordy. I’d love to go to lunch with you. But it’s got to be—”
“I know, darling. Somewhere very expensive. With oodles of glamour.”
White Carnations
Lieutenant Timothy Trant of the New York Homicide Division eyed his visitor appraisingly. She was young, beautiful in a careful way and cool—cool as the spray of white carnations she wore at her shoulder.
She said: “I’m Angela Forrest. You don’t remember me, do you?”
Trant searched an almost flawless memory. “I don’t think … yes, of course. Princeton. A prom. Nine years ago. A white evening dress, very little back. You waltzed superbly.”
The blue eyes widened. “How extraordinary! You do remember! But then why shouldn’t you? I did. You’ve done such clever things in those nine years. That’s why I thought of you when I needed help.”
“Help?” queried Trant. “From the Homicide Division?”
“Help from someone in the Homicide Division who isn’t just an ordinary policeman, help from someone with enough imagination not to think I’m insane.” Gravely she unpinned the white carnations from her lapel. “I’ve come about these flowers.”
It was a passionate interest in the less orthodox aspects of human behavior which had deflected Timothy Trant, Princeton ‘35, from a solid business career into the police force. A pretty girl who brought flowers to the Homicide Division was unorthodox. Miss Angela Forrest was intriguing him.
“It’s my birthday today.” She put the carnations down on the desk. “These arrived this morning—dozens of them, anonymously.”
“And it worries you?”
“It frightens me.” Fear, controlled with an obvious effort, made the blue eyes hard, “You see, two other people in my family received white carnations anonymously on their birthdays. Within a few hours both of them were—dead.”
“How discouraging!” said Lieutenant Trant, fascinated.
Quick to take offense, the girl flared: “You don’t believe me?”
Trant smiled. “I can’t believe you or not believe you until I know more.”
“I—I suppose so. You want me to tell you the whole story?”
“Very much,” said Lieutenant Trant. “Very much indeed.”
She crossed her legs. They were good legs. The traces of fear were still in her eyes, but she was obviously on her mettle as if she’d sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help her God.
“My uncle, Colonel John Forrest, was the first. You may have heard of him. He died six months ago. Shot with his own revolver. He’d just been sent back from the Pacific. Some sort of shell shock, they said.”
Lieutenant Trant remembered the case: A tired Army officer overstrained by the hell of a difficult campaign and returned to a civilian life which seemed meaningless to him. A tragic and not infrequent aftermath of war. The department had written Colonel Forrest off as an open-and-shut case of suicide.
Angela Forrest said: “Uncle John lived alone here in New York. The whole thing happened on his birthday. The family, all of us, were coming into town to celebrate by having dinner with him. I arrived early to take him some little present. No one answered my ring. I was worried. I had the janitor open the apartment for me. The first thing we saw when we went into the living room was the white carnations—dozens of them scattered across the carpet. There was a vase, too, a broken vase and a pool of water. I bent to pick up the flowers, and saw that some of them were splotched with red. That’s how I found Uncle John. He was lying there, the revolver in his hand—he had knocked over the vase as he fell.” She shivered. “It was blood on the carnations.”
She paused as if steeling herself to continue. Lieutenant Trant made no comment, He merely murmured, “And?”
“The police came, of course. They investigated. They said it was suicide. Oh, the carnations didn’t seem important then. I thought it was strange his having them because Uncle never liked flowers, but … but it wasn’t until the next thing happened that I began to feel the white carnations were—sinister.”
“There were more of them?”
“Last February. My aunt, Mrs. Lucia Dean. She was my father’s sister. She died on her birthday, too. Dean— Chippogue, Long Island. Do you remember?”
Lieutenant Trant did. The case had been outside his territory but his friend, Inspector Cadbury of the Chippogue police, had been much interested in it. A middle-aged society woman who had given a family birthday party had later been found in her garage, dead from carbon-monoxide poisoning. An accident … that was what the coroner had said. No conn
ection had been traced between her death and that of her brother.
“Our family always gets together for birthdays, Lieutenant,” said Angela Forrest. “It’s about the only time we see one another. We were all at Aunt Lucia’s house. The carnations came that morning. They must have been sent anonymously because she asked me if I’d sent them. I hadn’t. Later she was found in her car in the garage— dead. Inspector Cadbury’s men brought her into the living room. We all came down. The carnations were there by her body. The smell of them seemed to be everywhere, that sweet, horrible smell … as if they had been sent for her funeral.” There was a catch in her voice: “That was carnations—twice. And now today when I opened that box and I saw …”
She broke off, throwing up her hands to cover her face.
Quietly Trant asked: “You told Inspector Cadbury about the carnations?”
“Of course.’’ She spoke huskily. “He wasn’t interested. Coincidence, he said.”
“Three coincidences,” murmured Trant. “I suppose you’re giving a birthday party tonight, Miss Forrest?”
“Yes. The whole family, all that’s left of us. They’re to spend the night.”
“Put them off.”
“I can’t. I …” She stopped. “Then you do believe there’s danger? You don’t think I’m crazy to feel that…”
“No, there’s something more than coincidence about anonymously sent white carnations arriving for two people on their birthdays a few hours before they died? Of course I don’t think you’re crazy.” Lieutenant Trant watched her keenly. “Do white carnations have any particular significance in your family?”
“None that I know of.”
“Strange,” said Trant. “A murderer sending flowers to his intended victim. Very unorthodox. You suspect no one specifically, no member of the family?”
“No.”
“No one has any reason for wanting to kill your uncle, your aunt—or you?”
She hesitated. “Well, in a way, we all have a motive.”
“In a way?”
“You’d call it a motive, I suppose. My father had all the money. When he died, he made one large trust fund. The income is equally divided among his brothers and sisters and their children. If any one of us dies, the rest split his share.”
“I’d call that a motive.” Trant picked up one of the carnations from the desk. “How did these come?’
“Through the mail. Special delivery. In a plain box.”
“Why can’t you put off your party tonight?”
She looked at him desperately. “What good would that do? If the carnations mean what I think they mean I couldn’t stop this thing by putting a party off.” She paused. ‘There’s only one thing to do. Oh, I’ve thought and I’ve thought and I’m sure of it.”
“And that is?”
“To give the party, to give this person every chance and—and somehow bring it out into the open.” She leaned across the desk impulsively, ‘That’s why I came to you. I thought if you’d …”
“Come to the party?”
“Oh, yes, yes. I know it’s terribly …”
“Unorthodox,” put in Lieutenant Trant happily.
“But I’m frightened, Lieutenant. I’ll admit it now.” She paused. “But I wouldn’t be frightened—if you were with me when the danger starts.”
As Lieutenant Trant watched the lovely oval of her face, he found that it was not only the detective in him that was stirred by her plea.
“It would be a little obvious having a policeman to dinner,” he murmured. “A friend, I think, don’t you? An old Princeton beau?”
Angela Forrest’s smile was radiant. ‘Then you will come?”
“Delighted,” said Lieutenant Trant. “Most delighted.”
Her relief was pathetic. It was as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She rose, handing him a card from her pocketbook. “Here’s the address. It’s an old barn of a house, but Daddy left it to me and I’ve nowhere else to live. Oh, I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
“On the contrary,” said Trant, “I’m very grateful to you.”
“For what?”
Lieutenant Trant smiled. “For giving me something interesting to think about—and for waltzing so beautifully years ago.”
After she had left the office, he picked up one of the wilting carnations and stared at its limp petals.
Then he reached for the telephone.
The ensuing conversation with his friend, Inspector Cadbury of Chippogue, convinced Lieutenant Trant that something was very wrong in the Forrest family. Cadbury was competent and stolid. He had a hard-boiled man’s contempt for such feminine whimsies as sinister white carnations, and he stated firmly that Colonel Forrest had unquestionably committed suicide. But he also stated that it was different in the case of Mrs. Dean. Although Cadbury had no shred of evidence to implicate any one individual member of the family, he was convinced that Mrs. Dean’s “accident” in the garage had been murder.
“Call it a hunch, if you like,” he grumbled into the phone, “but it’s a hunch with twenty years’ police experience behind it. I smelled murder at the time. I smell it still.”
“Interesting,” murmured Lieutenant Trant.
After ten minutes, Trant had at his fingertips the facts of Mrs. Dean’s death. He learned that, so far as opportunity was concerned, any member of the Forrest clan could have faked the “accident.” The people involved—presumably the same as would be present at Angela’s birthday party—were four in number: Philip Forrest, Angela’s cousin, a bachelor and a reasonably unsuccessful Wall Street broker with a weakness for liquor; Herbert and Lucy Bartram, twin cousins, who were both ardent and eccentric research chemists; and, finally, Miss Ellen Forrest, Angela’s maiden aunt whom Cadbury described succinctly as a “holy horror,”
“You’re sure,” inquired Trant before ringing off, “that the smell you smelled in Mrs. Dean’s garage wasn’t the scent of—white carnations?”
“Carnations—nuts!” snarled Cadbury. That Forrest girl with her carnations! If you ask me, she’s as batty as the rest of ‘em.”
“Oh, no,” Lieutenant Trant sounded pained. “I wouldn’t say that. Not at all …”
* * *
That evening Trant arrived at the address Angela had given him, a severe old brownstone house in a fading neighborhood. He was wearing a dashing shirt-and-tie combination in a deliberate attempt to look as unpolicemanlike as possible. Before ringing the bell, he took a stroll around the block to make sure that the precautionary plainclothes man he had bespoken had arrived. The man was there, waiting unobtrusively at the mouth of an alley which ran parallel to the back yard. Trant nodded to him and, returning to the front door, announced himself.
Angela herself let him in. She was wearing a creamy white dress which enhanced her extreme pallor. Her manner, however, was admirably controlled. With a soft little laugh, she said:
“I’m still alive, you see.”
Trant was almost fooled by that laugh, but as she drew him into the hall he felt that her arm against his was trembling.
“I was hoping you’d arrive first but my cousin Philip’s already here.” She lowered her voice: “Is—is there anything you think I should do?”
Trant looked very grave. “Don’t get alone with anyone. That’s all. If there’s any chance of it, make an excuse to take me along. Promise me you’ll do that.”
A flicker of alarm showed in her eyes. “I promise.”
Philip Forrest was in the large, old-fashioned living room with a shaker of cocktails in front of him. He was indulging the “weakness for liquor” described by Inspector Cadbury and, as Angela introduced him, he was already feeling no pain.
On the piano in a large silver bowl, Angela, rather macabrely, Trant thought, had arranged the huge bunch of white carnations. Neither the flowers nor the ramblings of Philip Forrest added much gaiety to this theoretically gay anniversary.
The arrival of the two Bartrams did not help
either. Herbert and Lucy, the chemical twins, both had red hair, thin, scientific faces and quacking voices which spoke interminably about the problems of their current researches. Having informed Angela that they would have to leave immediately after the birthday dinner to attend an important lecture, they drank cocktails, shouted at each other and paid no attention to anyone else.
The single, decrepit maid was in the living room bringing a second shaker of cocktails when the front doorbell rang again.
“That’ll be Aunt Ellen. I’ll go, Mary.”
Angela started to the door and then, remembering Trant’s warning, came back, took his hand and drew him out of the room with her.
As they passed through the hall Trant ventured: “Charming relatives.”
She grimaced. “Wait till you see Aunt Ellen.”
* * *
When they opened the door, Aunt Ellen, large and bosomy and formidable, strode in. Inspector Cadbury’s “holy horror” carried a fat suitcase and demanded to be taken immediately to the room where she was to spend the night.
With Lieutenant Trant following with the suitcase, Angela conducted her aunt to a room at the head of the stairs. As Trant set the suitcase down by the bed, Aunt Ellen emitted a shrill scream and pointed to a sleek black cat which was batting contentedly at a catnip mouse under a bureau.
“Cats, Angela! You know I’m allergic to cats. I shall sneeze now for hours and hours.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Ellen. I can’t imagine how Minnie got in here.”
Angela removed the cat, but Aunt Ellen was not mollified. It was impossible for her to sleep in a room where a cat had been, she said. With a sigh of resignation, Angela murmured:
“All right, Aunt. I’ll sleep here. You can have my room.” She turned to Trant. “Perhaps you’d be good enough to take the suitcase. Just down the passage.”
