by Q. Patrick
Even Angela’s room failed to satisfy Aunt Ellen. It was cold, she objected. There was an old-fashioned gas heater. Trant lighted it.
Aunt Ellen sneezed. “That’s better. Now, Angela, let’s have dinner. I’m hungry.”
The birthday dinner was certainly a dismal affair. No one paid any attention to Angela, who tried bravely to be charming; Philip Forrest, unattractively drunk by now, ate in an apathetic stupor; the two Bartrams quacked at each other and Aunt Ellen complained.
Trant, almost sure that one of these people seated around the table was a murderer, was frankly puzzled. His work had given him a grudging admiration for murderers— especially those imaginative enough to send their victims flowers. He found nothing to admire in his fellow guests.
At length they all returned to the living room. The maid had put a tray with coffee, liqueur glasses and a bottle of peach brandy on a table by the fire, and Angela was offering liqueurs when Cousin Philip roused himself sufficiently to mutter:
“Hey, wait a minute. I got a present for Angy. In my coat. Angy’s birthday.”
He weaved out to the hall and returned with a bottle of brandy. “Real brandy,” he announced. “Much better than that peach stuff.” He broke the seal, spilled some of the liquid into a glass and gulped it down. “Happy birthday, Angy.” He splashed some into a second glass and handed it to Angela.
Angela, smiling a strained smile, thanked him and put the glass down on a little table at her side while she poured peach brandy for the Bartrams and Trant. Philip flourished the bottle at Aunt Ellen.
“How about a snorter of Angy’s present, Auntie?”
“Philip, you’re drunk.” Aunt Ellen’s eyes snapped.
“Angela, why on earth do you have those white carnations? You know I hate them. All those cups Lucia won for them cluttering up my dining-room closet. I’m cold. Get my wrap. It’s on top of my suitcase.”
Trant rose. “I’ll get the wrap, Miss Forrest.”
As he returned downstairs with the wrap, he saw Angela with the two Bartrams in the hall. Her cousins were scrambling into their coats, quacking about being late for their chemical lecture.
“Nice party.” The female twin pecked at Angela’s cheek. “Back around eleven thirty. Don’t wait up. Is there a key?”
Angela gave her one, and the twins hurried out, slamming the front door behind them.
Angela made a helpless gesture at Trant. “I’m rather ashamed to have asked you.”
He grinned. “I didn’t come to be entertained, you know.”
“I know.” Her lovely face was pale. “But all this … it’s so dismal and ordinary. They always act just this way. I’m beginning to believe I must have been imagining things
and that …”
“The white carnations aren’t sinister?” She shivered. “What do you think?”
“I’m not thinking yet,” said Trant. “I’m just watching and waiting.”
* * *
Back in the living room, Trant put the wrap around Miss Forrest’s plump shoulders. Philip, surly now, stirred in his chair.
“For heaven’s sake, can’t anyone be amusing? Angy, drink. You haven’t touched your present.”
He made a grab at the brandy bottle and poured some more for himself. Angela reached for her liqueur, smiled at her cousin and tilted the glass to her lips. She was just about to drink when her forehead crinkled in a puzzled frown and she lowered the glass.
Instantly Trant said: “Angela, I think you’ve got my drink. This is yours.”
He passed her his glass and took hers from her cold fingers. Unobtrusively he lifted the glass to his nostrils. He realized then what had made Angela pause.
He was excited now. At last the party was becoming really—unorthodox. With a pretense of casualness he mentioned a forgotten phone call and asked Angela to show him the telephone. Still holding his glass of peach brandy, she led him through the dining room into a small, linoleum-floored pantry.
“Why did you change drinks?” she asked tensely. “I didn’t have yours. That was mine. I know, because I left it on that table.”
His eyes grim, Trant asked: “You started to drink and then didn’t. Why?”
“Because … because the drink smelled like peach brandy and yet I saw Philip pour it out of his bottle of straight brandy. I was puzzled. I thought perhaps …”
Trant cut in: “Smell the glass you have in your hand.
That’s my drink. That’s real peach brandy.” Uncertainly she sniffed at the glass.
“Okay.” Trant took the glass and handed her the other glass that had been hers. “What does this one smell like?”
“Sort—sort of like the peach brandy.”
“Sort of like. What else does it smell like?”
“I suppose it’s more like …” She broke off, a look of horror slowly creeping into her eyes. “It’s more like almonds.”
“Exactly. Almonds. Bitter almonds.”
“Prussic acid.” Angela took a step toward him, and the glass dropped from her limp fingers, breaking against the linoleum. “Then … then it happened!”
“Smart,” muttered Trant. “Poisoning peach brandy with prussic acid. If Cousin Philip hadn’t brought that straight brandy, it would have been foolproof. You’d have drunk it. You’d never have noticed the smell.”
Now that the danger had come, Angela Forrest’s control had deserted her. She stood there, swaying slightly, her eyes fixed on Trant’s face. “But who… ?”
Trant scowled. “That’s what makes me mad. I was upstairs getting the wrap. Did you leave the living room ahead of the Bartrams or with them?”
“With them, but … but they forgot to say good night to Aunt Ellen. They went back.”
“Then any of them could have done it. Any of them.”
“What—what are we going to do?”
“The Bartrams get back at eleven thirty. We won’t do a thing until then.” Trant was very alert now. “Listen, I don’t want your cousin and your aunt suspicious. You go back. I’ll join you in a minute. And for heaven’s sake don’t drink anything.”
She hesitated, watching him desperately. Then, without a word, she left.
Alone, Trant stared down at the linoleum. A little pool of liquid had collected around the broken glass. He stooped, sopped the liquid up in his handkerchief, put the handkerchief into a Mason jar he found on the pantry shelf and slipped out into the kitchen. There was no sign of the decrepit maid, who had presumably left for the night. Trant moved out of the kitchen, across the yard to the alley at the back of the house. His plainclothes man was waiting. Trant gave him the jar, telling him to rush it to the laboratory for immediate analysis and to return.
Trant went back to the living room. From the scene that confronted him it was almost incredible that, only a few moments before, a cold-blooded and subtle attempt should have been made to murder Angela. Philip, half asleep, was slumped at one side of the fire. Aunt Ellen was lost in a game of solitaire. Angela, white with haunted eyes, sat alone on the sofa.
Trant joined her. For what seemed like an interminable period the birthday party marked time, and during that period a very unorthodox thought started to formulate in Lieutenant Trant’s mind—a thought that brought a tingle of astonished fascination.
Promptly at ten Aunt Ellen put her cards away and rose. “I’m going to bed,” she informed everyone, then wrinkled her nose at Philip, who seemed to be completely asleep now. “Better get him to bed, too, Angela. Liquor. Disgusting.” Like the female Bartram she pecked at Angela’s cheek. “Good night, Mr… er… er… Good night, Angela. Nice party.”
After her aunt had gone Angela looked from the sleeping Philip to Trant.
Trant said: “I’ll soon cope with Cousin Philip. Which is his room?”
Angela told him, and Trant shook Philip sufficiently awake to guide him upstairs and flop him onto the bed in his room where he promptly started to snore.
Locking the bedroom door and pocketing the key, T
rant came downstairs again. Angela was waiting anxiously in the hall.
“The Bartrams won’t be back for an hour and a half.
What are we going to do?”
Lieutenant Trant smiled at her. “You, Miss Forrest, are going to bed.”
“To bed?”
“You’re not going to wait up for the Bartrams. You’re going to your room and you’re going to stay in it with the door locked until morning.”
“But you said you were going to try to find out who …” ‘”I think I have found out.” He smiled again. “And don’t worry. Unless I’m very much mistaken, there won’t be any more murders in the Forrest family tonight.” Angela stared. “You don’t mean …”
Trant put his hand on her smooth white arm. “Do what I say, promise. For the sake of the Princeton prom and the white dress with very little back. Tomorrow I’ll be here early and I think I’ll be able to explain everything. You’ll understand then.”
He leaned forward and pecked at her cheek in imitation of Aunt Ellen.
“Nice party,” he said. “That seems to be the popular description of it. Goodbye until—tomorrow …”
After instructing his plain-clothes man to keep the house under close observation, Lieutenant Trant returned to police headquarters and called Cadbury to inform the astonished inspector that, if he came into town early to-morrow morning, he would be able to arrest Mrs. Dean’s murderer.
Having left Cadbury spluttering he called the police laboratory for the analyst’s report on the brandy-soaked handkerchief.
“Hi, Trant.” The analyst’s voice was sardonic. “Funny brandy on that handkerchief. Couldn’t have tasted very nice.”
“So I imagine,” said Trant.
The analyst chuckled. “Guess I know what you’ve been expecting, Nice little lethal dose of prussic acid, eh? Well. I’m sorry to disappoint you. There is an alien liquid in that brandy but it’s only …”
“Oil of bitter almonds?” asked Trant.
The analyst snorted. “Darn you, Trant. What’s the point of analyzing anything for you? You always know the right answer before the report gets back to you.”
He rang off.
For a moment Trant sat at his desk, a faint smile playing around his mouth. The room was dark and dimly lighted. A sudden scuffling made him lift his eyes. A small mouse sat in the corner watching him with beady eyes and twitching nose. Lieutenant Trant stared back at the mouse. As he did so, the color faded from his cheeks and a look of acute anxiety darkened his face.
“The catnip mouse,” he exclaimed. “Good Lord, the catnip mouse.”
He leaped from his desk, sending the mouse scurrying to safety. He ran downstairs, jumped into a police car and started to drive recklessly toward Angela Forrest’s house.
He was in danger of having made the most tragic blunder of his career.
He parked the car one block away and hurried to the mouth of the alley where his plainclothes, man was waiting. He gripped the man’s arm, “Has anyone gone into that house since I left?”
“Yeah. Lieutenant, the couple of redheads. Came back about half an hour ago.’”
“Half an hour ago,” moaned Trant.
He swung around, peering at the back of the house. In the shadows he managed to locate Angela’s bedroom window and turned swiftly to his man. “Listen, Kelly,” he said, “I’ve got to get into that third window upstairs, and I’ve got to get there quick.”
“Easy, sir. I looked the place over pretty good by daylight. There’s a bay window on the dining room and right above it, a drain pipe,” He grinned. “Seen you tackle worse than that in your time, sir.”
* * *
The two men slipped into the back yard. Kelly was right. In less than a minute, Trant had swung himself onto the roof of the bay window and had swarmed noiselessly up the short stretch of pipe to the open window of Angela’s room. Holding his breath, he slid through into the deep darkness of the room. Still as stone, he listened. Heavy, stertorous breathing came from the bed. At the sound of it, relief flooded through him. He wasn’t too late.
He stole toward the bed. In the darkness he could just make out the head of the sleeping figure. Something gleamed white on the table at the bedside. He touched it. A glass.
He picked it up and saw that it was half full of milk. Tilting it, he let some of the liquid fall on his tongue. The faintly tart taste confirmed his worst suspicions.
The milk was doped.
He remembered the layout of the room. Silently he moved past the unlighted gas heater to the clothes closet and sneaked inside. As he waited in the darkness, he could feel the irregular pounding of the pulses in his wrists.
The luminous dial of his watch told him it was half an hour later when he heard the footsteps in the passage outside. They paused in front of the door. Then Trant heard the squeak of a key turning cautiously in the lock. The door made a tiny groan as it opened. The muffled footsteps were in the room now.
In a second Trant heard the first sound he had been waiting for—the throb of the window being stealthily shut. The tension was almost unendurable as he waited for the second, the much more sinister sound.
And, as he crouched in the darkness against the faintly perfumed dresses, that second sound came.
The sharp hiss of gas escaping from the unlighted heater.
This was the moment. Silently he slipped from the closet to the door and stood with his back to it. The gas hissed evilly in the darkness. He could dimly make out a figure moving from the heater, the figure who had broken into the room, turned on the gas—and had not lighted it.
He felt for the wall switch and snapped it down. As the room sprang into light there was a little scream. Trant moved his eyes from the figure of Aunt Ellen sleeping her drugged sleep in the bed to the other figure, the figure which stood transfixed between the bed and the gas heater.
It was the figure of Angela Forrest.
She had changed her white evening dress for a dark suit.
She stared at him blindly.
Quietly he said: “Catching the murderer red-handed I believe is the recognized cliché.” He paused. “Since it will be difficult to asphyxiate Aunt Ellen without asphyxiating you and me, too, I think, with your permission, I’ll turn off the gas.”
Angela Forrest, her dark hair tumbled around her chalk-white face, did not speak. He crossed to the heater, turned off the gas and moved back to the door.
His voice almost self-deprecatory, Trant said: “Extremely stupid of me to say there’d be no more murders tonight. You see I made a great mistake. I overlooked the catnip mouse.” He continued to watch her. “I didn’t realize until a few minutes ago that you’d put the catnip mouse in the spare room to lure the cat in there so that Aunt Ellen with her allergy would insist on changing rooms with you. Tomorrow, of course, poor Aunt Ellen was going to be found asphyxiated by gas in your bed. Since no one in the family knew you’d switched rooms, everyone would believe she’d been murdered in mistake for you.”
He paused. “When I heard from my man outside that the Bartrams had come back, I was terrified because I saw you wouldn’t kill Aunt Ellen until they were here to be suspects. But … well … I did arrive in time, didn’t I?”
Angela’s tongue flickered between her lips.
Rather sadly Trant continued: “When I left tonight, I’d realized that you faked that poison attempt yourself. Too bad you dropped the glass on linoleum instead of on the carpet. Otherwise I’d have had difficulty in having that ‘prussic acid’ analyzed and discovering it was only harmless oil of bitter almonds. Yes. I saw then that you were clever but I underestimated your cleverness. You were the poor little frightened girl. I was the big strong policeman who was to save you from being murdered. Turning a policeman into your knight in shining armor before you even committed the murder—that was brilliantly unorthodox, Miss Forrest.”
Still she did not speak. As he studied her, there was an expression of grudging admiration in his eyes. “You had me summe
d up so well. You knew exactly the sort of story that would intrigue me. Eerie white carnations arriving anonymously on birthdays to spell doom. Frankly, I fell for it until Aunt Ellen let slip that Mrs. Dean grew white carnations for flower shows. It was obvious to me then that white carnations were the most likely of all flowers to find in Mrs. Dean’s house and her brother’s apartment.”
Angela Forrest had clenched her hands into fists. Trant murmured: “You probably didn’t murder Colonel Forrest. But the extra share of the trust fund that came to you on his suicide was pleasant and it gave you the idea of removing Mrs. Dean, too. That was meant to be an accident but recently I suppose you got wind of the fact that Inspector Cadbury suspected murder.” He shrugged. “Hence tonight’s little exhibition. An ingenious scheme for proving your innocence and liquidating Aunt Ellen at the same time.”
His smile was apologetic. “Excuse my inquisitiveness, but there’s one thing I still don’t quite understand. Why did you do it? Kill another aunt, buy a new hat? Was that the idea?”
Angela’s eyes were blazing now. In a sudden, shrill voice she almost screamed: “It was my money. It was always my money. It belonged to my father. It was wicked. The others had no right to it.”
“Oh, dear!” Lieutenant Trant gave a sigh. “What a stereotyped motive. I was hoping for something a little less
run-of-the-mill.”
It was several days after Angela Forrest’s arrest that Lieutenant Trant found the wilted carnation hidden under some papers on his desk. Almost with reverence he picked it up and put it away in a drawer.
“For my memory book,” he murmured.
The Plaster Cat
Lieutenant Timothy Trant of the New York Homicide Division stopped his car at the corner of Park and Eightieth Streets. He was to pick up Doc Sanders there. It was seven o’clock in the morning and Trant knew that
Sanders, who was sour at best, would be at his sourest. “Fine thing!” The little police doctor threw his bag in the car and jumped in beside Trant. “Why can’t your murderers keep respectable hours?”
“It isn’t murder.” Trant smiled as he started his car. “It’s an accident or so they tell me—at the Ruskin School for Girls.”
