by Q. Patrick
* * *
Lieutenant Trant and Miss Ruskin surveyed each other warily. On Miss Ruskin’s desk at their side the plaster cat smiled its incalculable smile. Timothy knew the truth now. He respected Miss Ruskin. He did not relish what would have to come.
“I’ve just seen Dr. Graves, Miss Ruskin. I made him admit what he knew. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to admit it, too.”
Miss Ruskin’s lashes flickered. “Admit what?”
“You found Madeline in the garage dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. You carried her upstairs. You went downstairs for the plaster cat. You brought it to her room and—” his voice was very quiet “—and you struck her on the head with it.”
The color started to creep from the Headmistress’ face.
But she did not speak.
“You loved Madeline as if she were your own daughter,” continued Timothy. “It must have been a terrible thing for you to do, but it was courageous. You never dreamed that the blow on the head would make me suspect murder. By planting the plaster cat by the open front door of the car, you thought we would accept your accident theory.” He paused. “You did it because you were desperately anxious to keep us from knowing what really happened.”
Miss Ruskin glanced fleetingly at the plaster cat and then stared down at her smooth, competent hands.
“Just what do you expect me to say, Lieutenant?” she whispered.
“I don’t want you to say anything, Miss Ruskin. All you need do is listen. When you found Madeline dead in the garage, you realized exactly what had happened. Someone had got her drunk, shut her in the garage, turned on the car engine—and killed her. You tried to fake the death to look like an accident partly, I suppose, to avert a scandal in your school. But I think you did it mostly to protect the two people who meant most to you in the world. Madeline and—her father, Kenneth Winters.”
The color flooded back into Miss Ruskin’s cheeks. She looked at Trant with a kind of incredulous awe.
“How do you know all that? It’s uncanny.”
“Not uncanny, Miss Ruskin. Just average canniness. After the medical evidence showed the blow was post mortem, the rest was simple.”
“You—you really know the whole truth?”
“There were enough clues. All I needed from Graves was confirmation.”
“And the clues?”
“Madeline was old enough to be at college, but you kept her here with you. She was in love with Stevens, but you were dead against that marriage or any other marriage for her. Your excuse was that she was too young, but many girls marry happily at eighteen. Madeline never drank. And, most important of all, Dr. Graves was her regular physician. It isn’t normal for a girl to have a neurologist for her regular physician, unless there is something wrong with her neurotically.”
His eyes were fixed almost sadly on Miss Ruskin’s face. “Madeline’s behavior at the dance told me the rest. Until then, she’d had no idea there was anything wrong with her, had she? You and Doctor Graves had protected her. But at the dance she found out. That’s what made her refuse Lane Stevens, although she loved him.
“The shock of the discovery coupled with the emotional distress of turning down the boy she loved brought on an attack, didn’t it? I should have guessed it. I should have guessed the moment Lane Stevens described her going rigid in his arms. She sent him away to get water so he wouldn’t realize. Then she ran away into the bushes to hide.”
Timothy’s hand played absently over the plaster cat’s back. “I didn’t have to be a doctor to realize what was the matter with her. After all, there aren’t many conditions a girl can have and yet be completely unaware she is sick. Once I knew she had gone rigid, it was obvious. That’s how I realized Madeline Winters had epilepsy.”
Miss Ruskin was sitting very still, her hands folded in her lap.
“There’s hardly any need to tell the rest,” murmured Timothy. “Madeline, who thought she had everything to live for, suddenly discovered that she had nothing. She was young and things hit you harder when you’re young. She’d renounced the man she loved. The very word epilepsy is a nightmare to someone ignorant of medicine.
“She looked forward to a future of sickness, horror and loneliness. She couldn’t face it. That’s why she begged drinks, to pluck up courage for what she had to do. Because it was Madeline herself, wasn’t it, who shut herself in the garage and turned on the car engine?”
He paused and added gently: “That’s the truth you were trying so hard to conceal. You were ready to risk your own safety on the chance that you’d be able to keep Kenneth Winters from ever knowing that his daughter had been an epileptic—and a suicide.”
Miss Ruskin had risen. She moved to the window and stood gazing out with her back to Trant.
“It was awful, what I did. Awful and terribly foolish. I realize that now. There was a suicide note. I destroyed it. I knew it would have killed Kenneth if he’d ever known.” Slowly she turned to face Trant. “Now that you know the truth, what are you going to do?”
Trant smiled at her, a slow, reassuring smile. “Justice and the technical truth don’t always go hand in hand, Miss Ruskin. In a case like this, I don’t think we’re much interested in the technical truth. I shall do all I can to have a verdict of accidental death brought at the inquest. It shouldn’t be difficult to arrange.”
Beneath the pure white hair, Miss Ruskin’s face lightened with a radiance that made it beautiful. “You are very good, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t be silly.” Timothy grinned. “One day maybe I’ll have kids of my own. If you try to flunk them in algebra, I’ll blackmail you.”
His face grew grave again. “There’s one point we still haven’t covered, Miss Ruskin. The point of how Madeline discovered at the dance that she was not well.”
“Yes, yes. I wondered,” she agreed quickly.
“You don’t have to wonder. You thought that you and Dr. Graves were the only two who knew. That wasn’t quite right. Someone else knew. Someone who has access to your private papers.”
Miss Ruskin stared. “You can’t mean …?”
“Lane Stevens was introduced to Madeline by Betty Price,” said Trant grimly. “Miss Price is not the sort of girl who likes her men taken away from her. I’m broad-minded but even I don’t think it’s very attractive to taunt a girl, even a rival, with the unhappy fact that she’s an epileptic.”
Miss Ruskin’s face was stern. “You really think Betty Price did that?”
“Personally,” said Timothy, studying the nails of his left hand, “I’d make a law which could punish that sort of cruelty. But unfortunately no law like that exists right now. Even so, I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult for you to find another secretary, would it?”
“I don’t imagine that it will be difficult at all,” said Miss Ruskin crisply.
Timothy nodded to her, picked up the plaster cat and, with it under his arm, moved out of the office.
Miss Betty Price was seated at her desk, languidly smoking a cigarette. The hard green eyes moved sardonically to Timothy’s sober, unsmiling face.
“Well, policeman, how are we coming? Found out who killed Madeline yet?”
“Yes,” said Timothy “Madeline was killed by a cat.”
“That unattractive object under your arm?”
“No,” said Timothy. “A different type of cat. Maybe I should say a dog. A female dog.”
Miss Price blew an indifferent smoke ring. “Am I supposed to understand what you’re talking about?”
“Not necessarily.” Timothy smiled at her evenly. “But it shouldn’t take you long. Miss Ruskin wants to talk to you in her office.”
The Corpse in the Closet
Lieutenant Timothy Trant, entering his sister’s chattering living room, thought how depressing cocktail parties sounded. In the New York Homicide Division he was tabbed as a playboy, largely because he’d gone to Princeton—a frivolous pursuit in the eyes of his police pals. He usually avoided social functions; bu
t his sister Freda always bullied him into attending hers. She was the only woman who could still intimidate him and knew it.
She bore down on him: “Timothy, as usual, you’re disgracefully late. The whole point of the party was for you to meet Celia Prentiss—and she’s almost ready to leave.”
“She’ll survive not meeting me.” Timothy nodded to where several men were clustered around an expensively shiny blonde. “If she ever needs a cop, it’s only to direct traffic.”
“Really, Timothy! Celia’s incredibly rich, and it’s too absurd—you, a bachelor at thirty-one. Of course, she has a frightful husband who won’t divorce her and who’s behaving simply horribly. But these days you can always get rid of husbands.”
“I could murder him, for example,” said Timothy. He was immune to matchmaking.
He looked around the crowded room. If he had to go to parties, at least he’d talk to people who interested him. His eye fell on a refreshingly unaffected girl sitting alone in a corner. She was feeling in her bag as if searching for a cigarette. Suddenly her body stiffened. Swiftly she pulled a piece of paper out of the bag and stared at it. As she read it, her expression showed consternation— almost fear. Then she pushed the paper back into her bag and snapped the clasp.
Timothy was intrigued by what he’d seen. “I’ll meet your heiress, Freda,” he said. “But first introduce me to that girl in the corner.”
“Sue Spender? She’s a nobody—Celia’s roommate. Just a poor cousin or something.”
“Don’t worry—I won’t marry her. Just give me five minutes with her.”
“All right.” Stiffly Freda guided him to the girl. “Sue, my brother, Lieutenant Trant of the Homicide Division.” She eyed Timothy firmly. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Sue Spender, Timothy realized, was quite a beauty. Under the small hat tilted over soft brown hair, her skin was like country cream, her eyes golden brown. Mystery or no mystery, she was a very desirable dish.
Dismay still lurked in her eyes. “You’re the brother I’ve heard so much about. The extraordinary one—the policeman,” she said.
“Extraordinary? Is that amiable?”
“I meant extraordinarily clever. Everybody says so.” She gave him a quick smile that affected Timothy rather more than he cared to be. “This is luck. You’re the one man I need,” she said.
He dropped into the next chair. “In trouble? Committed a murder, I hope? I have a weakness for beautiful murderesses.”
Calmly she said: “Oh, I’ve committed a murder—two in fact. But that’s all in the past.”
He blinked. “I wish I’d known you then.”
“You wouldn’t have been much interested. But this—” She gestured bewilderedly. “I don’t know what to make of it, whether it’s just a joke or—sinister.”
“It wouldn’t have something to do with a piece of paper you just found in your bag?”
She stared. “You are extraordinary.”
“What did the billet doux say?”
She handed him a piece of paper. Her eyes watched his face—puzzled, uneasy. “It must have been put in my purse here at the party. When I arrived, I powdered my nose in the bedroom. I’m absolutely certain it wasn’t there then. Do you think it means there’s some kind of danger?”
The message was crudely printed in pencil:
“This is a warning. Take some serviceable male home with you from the party and get there at eight—unless you want to find a corpse in your closet.”
Timothy turned the note over. The paper had been torn from a larger sheet. In one corner were the printed letters OPM. “Are you the sort person who inspires threats?” he asked.
“Oh, no. About committing murders—that was a joke. I’m awfully dull and respectable … I left my bag over on the mantel for a while. Anyone could have got at it.”
“How many people do you know here?”
“That’s what’s so odd. I just came because I’m Celia’s roommate. I only know three.”
“Celia Prentiss …?”
“And the two men with her now.”
The group of admirers around Celia had dwindled to two—a towheaded naval officer and a young civilian with thick black hair.
“The officer’s Oliver Brown, just back from Japan today. He’s been in love with Celia for years. The other’s Dr. John Barker. Celia’s been going around with him since she separated from Martin, her husband, last year.”
“I’ll make a guess. They’re rival suitors.”
The naval officer was saying something to Celia. Then he crossed the room to Timothy’s sister, shook her hand, and left. Timothy watched his departure.
“Any idea why ‘corpse in your closet’ is underlined?” he asked Sue Spender.
She flushed. “I recently wrote a mystery story. It’s called
The Corpse in the Closet.”
“Oh,” said Timothy, suddenly dubious. And then: “Those murders you committed.”
“I know what you’re thinking. That I’m staging all this to try to intrigue a real policeman, or get publicity. I swear it isn’t true. Do you believe me?”
Timothy grinned. “Policemen don’t believe anyone.” The grin went. “Does anyone else here know you wrote that book?”
“I doubt it. I used an assumed name.”
“Then almost certainly the note was written by Celia, one of the boy friends—or you.”
She smiled vividly. “You’re ornery, aren’t you? Whoever wrote it—why?”
“Presumably because he or she wants a man brought to the apartment at eight.”
“But why?”
“That,” said Timothy, “is not so simple. But there’s an elementary way to find out.”
Her face lit up. “You’ll come with me?”
“Delightedly.”
“And you think there’s danger?”
“If there is, it’ll be the first time anything stimulating ever came out of one of Freda’s parties.”
Freda loomed at their side. “Timothy, Celia’s leaving.
She wants to meet you.”
To her surprise Timothy jumped up. “I’m really dying to meet Celia,” he exclaimed.
Sue rose too and went with him. Celia looked as charmingly stupid as her photographs in the social columns. Dr. Barker looked sulky and handsome. Timothy watched them both with veiled interest.
The heiress’ desire to know Timothy had obviously been in Freda’s matchmaking imagination. Celia smiled a few banal politenesses and turned to Sue: “Darling, Oliver’s run home—to change. He’s filthy from traveling. He’s coming to the apartment at eight.”
Dr. Barker’s sulks were clearly due to the intrusion of Lieutenant Oliver Brown. In spite of Celia’s undivorceable husband, her admirers seemed to feel proprietary about her. She thrust an absent-minded hand at Timothy and drifted away on the doctor’s arm. Soon they re-emerged from the bedroom, Celia resplendent in a sable wrap. Freda scurried to see them off. Timothy glanced at Sue.
“Twenty of eight. We’d better be going.”
Freda reappeared, frowning. “Really, Timothy, you weren’t very charming to Celia.”
“I’m sorry,” he said meekly. “It was just that I was speechless with admiration.” He kissed Freda. “Miss Spender and I have to be leaving too. Thanks for a lovely party.”
Freda eyed Sue suspiciously. ”Don’t talk nonsense. You had a horrible time.”
“On the contrary,” said Timothy, “I couldn’t have enjoyed myself more if I’d found a corpse in your closet.”
With Sue tense at his side, Timothy drove uptown toward the apartment she shared with Celia. The note, whether genuine or faked by this unusual girl, piqued him.
As they sped through traffic, he let his thoughts ramble happily through fields of the most sinister nature. “If you don’t inspire threats,” he asked, “how about Celia?”
“Celia? Oh, no. Everyone loves her—except Martin.”
“Her husband?”
“Yes. He’s
the most impossible person. He only married her for her money—but exploded with moral indignation when she separated from him. As for the divorce—he’s got smart lawyers and Celia’s been pretty careless; not really bad, of course—just unconventional. He’s threatening every kind of counter suit, with disagreeable publicity. He’ll probably squeeze a couple of million out of her before she gets free. And not only that; he’s always making scenes, screaming about killing himself and her—and he still has a key to the apartment. I’ve begged her to change the lock, but she just won’t bother. She thinks things always turn out all right."
“She does?” Timothy jammed his foot on the accelerator, shooting the car forward.
Sue watched in alarm. “Whatever’s the matter?”
“I’ve just had a disagreeable idea about things turning out all right,” he said grimly.
As he swung into Sue’s block, the street was practically empty. One other car was drawing up outside a striped awning. Celia and Dr. Barker got out and disappeared into the building. Timothy roared down the block, jolted to a stop and, grabbing Sue, ran into the apartment house foyer. The elevator was taking Celia and Dr. Barker up.
Timothy asked sharply: “What floor?”
“The third and fourth. It’s a duplex.“ Seizing Sue’s hand, Timothy ran up the stairs. At the third floor he asked: “Where?”
“Down here. But please explain.”
“The best way for things to turn out for Celia now would be to have no husband. I …”
They reached the apartment door. It was ajar. They stepped inside—and were confronted with wild confusion. Celia, her sable wrap askew, was shrilling into the telephone: “The police! Quick. Send the police.”
Behind her, near the stairs, the door of a big hall closet stood open. Visible around it were a pair of male feet. Dr. Barker was kneeling by the body of a strange man who lay sprawled inside the closet, head and hand pointing outward. Blood matted his red hair. At his side, tossed on a coat, was a heavy metal statue of some Greek god. The head of the statue was stained with blood.
Dr. Barker glanced up at Timothy, his dark face drawn with astonishment and horror.
