George Harmon Coxe

by The Ring of Truth

  “Oh—I’m sorry,” he said, making the words sound regretful. “In that case I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow before I can tell you about this afternoon.”

  That brought a prolonged pause. He could almost see her thinking before she said: “This afternoon? You mean with those people you had me telephone? Did something happen?”

  “Not really. Nothing of importance anyway. But I did get an interesting call from Dr. Tracey over at City Hospital.”

  “The pathologist?”

  “Yes. He ran some tests for me. It’s beginning to look as if someone may have administered some chloral hydrate— what they used to call “knockout drops’—to Flemming before he was shot last night, probably in the drink. . . . Are you sure you won’t change your mind about dinner?” he added before she could reply.

  She said: “Well—” and he knew he had her. There was a momentary silence followed by an audible sigh. Then she said, still with no great warmth: “How long will you be?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Maybe less. You might get some ice out. I could use a small drink.”

  9

  MARY HAYWARD was waiting in Paul Standish’s small consulting room which connected the reception room and the examining room at the rear. Her smooth young face, perhaps deliberately, gave no indication of her mood but she was no longer the efficient, white-uniformed girl the office patients saw each day. She had changed to a simple shirtwaist dress with buttons down most of the front and a prim neckline, her medium-brown hair was softly waved, and there was a trace of lipstick on her sweetly shaped mouth.

  “I got some ice out for you,” she said as he took off his hat and coat.

  He said: “Thanks, Mary,” and followed her into the examining room.

  The refrigerator necessary for certain vaccines and medication held the customary ice trays and she had emptied one into a plastic bowl. She had taken a bottle of Scotch from a lower cabinet but there was only one glass. She drank very little as the usual thing but there were times, when they worked late, when she would join him while they discussed the day’s affairs and interesting highlights in a friendly, congenial, and sometimes intimate way. “None for you?” he said, holding the glass up.

  “If were going to eat out I’ll have one then.”

  He poured whiskey, added ice and water. He took a grateful swallow, said “Ahh—” and steered her back to the more comfortable consulting room.

  “Now,” she said, settling herself in the patient’s chair opposite the desk, “what’s this about chloral hydrate? You said the man who was killed last night was shot.”

  “He was.”

  “So what made you think there was something else? What made you suspect he had taken anything?”

  Standish told her, briefly but explicitly. He explained how he happened to find the “powder paper” and the suggestion he had made about it to Lieutenant Ballard.

  “Ballard got a report from the city chemist that there actually was a trace of chloral hydrate in the paper. He argued —and he was right—that it could have been used earlier and not necessarily on Flemming.”

  “When did you hear from Dr. Tracey?”

  “Just before I telephoned you from the morgue.”

  “And he said that Flemming actually took some chloral hydrate?”

  “He certainly ingested it and the fact that it could be detected at all suggests that he took it not too long before he died.”

  He had Mary’s full attention now. The well-spaced gray eyes were thoughtful and her growing frown was eroding her smooth brow.

  “Would this have anything to do with the conference you had this afternoon?”

  “I’m not sure. And until I knew about the chloral hydrate, one way or another, I couldn’t quite accept the idea that Flemming’s murder was as simple as it seemed.”

  “You mean you were suspicious.”

  “A little, I guess.”

  “And when you get that way you won’t give up.” Standish grinned at her, knowing what she meant. In his own defense he said: “I can’t help thinking what Doc Lathrop used to keep telling me.”

  “Yes,” Mary said and sighed resignedly. “The truth always rings true.’ What’s the rest of it?”

  “‘But the appearance of truth varies widely.’ . . . Jess Flemming killed Robert Tremaine.”

  “Accidentally.”

  “On the face of it, yes.”

  “If it hadn’t been for the discarded paper with the traces of chloral hydrate you would have accepted the police theory that Ralph Estey, or some other enemy of Flemming’s, had walked in and shot him.”

  “Yes.”

  “But now you’re suggesting that the Tremaine accident was not an accident, that someone hired Flemming to run Tremaine down as part of some plot.”

  “Not suggesting, Mary. Just wondering—”

  The telephone’s shrill summons saved him from further argument and Mary glowered at it before she snatched it up.

  “Dr. Standish’s office.”

  He could see the sudden tightening of her face as some reply came to her, heard her say: “Yes, he’s here, Lieutenant. Why do you want him? Don’t tell me you’ve found another body? . . . What? . . . All right, all right,” she added irritably. “Here he is.”

  She handed over the telephone, her voice quietly furious. “Oh, damn. He would call now.”

  “Doc?” Ballard said, wasting no time on the amenities. “Got a job for you. Do you want to drive or do I send a carp’

  “I’ll drive. Where?”

  “Hennessey’s.”

  “What?” '

  “I’ll have a man out front to tell you where to go. Make it soon, hunh?”

  Standish heard the click in his ear before he could reply. He replaced the instrument slowly, not daring to look at Mary, and, for one of the few times, sharing fully her views on the duties and obligations and drawbacks of serving as medical examiner.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, still not looking at her.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” she said stiffly. “This sort of thing is to be expected, isn’t it? Who is it this time?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Where?”

  “Hennessey’s. . . . And look,” he added earnestly, “we can still have dinner. Come with me and—”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You can order drinks for us. I probably won’t be long and—”

  Again she interrupted and when he saw the set expression around the mouth and the distant and detached look in the gray eyes he gave up.

  “The lamb chops are still in the icebox,” she said, reaching for her camel’s-hair coat. “I should have insisted on cooking them in the first place.” She got as far as the door and then did an about-face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, a sudden contriteness in her voice and an odd mistiness in her eyes. “I don’t know why I have to make it worse for you. It’s just that I wish you didn’t have to—oh, never mind.” She straightened her shoulders and stuck her chin out. “Be sure and give the lieutenant my best regards.”

  There was an unmarked police car in front of Hennessey’s and another with the city’s insignia on the door across the street as Paul Standish bumped his sedan into the parking lot. He crossed the street diagonally, bag in hand, and a plainclothesman stepped out of the shadows to meet him.

  “No ambulance yet?”

  “In the alley out back. Hennessey is about to have a stroke and the lieutenant wants to humor him. You know, all those people eating dinner and Hennessey afraid they’ll walk out. Let me have your bag. I’ll go around. Keep on straight through the left-hand doorway next to the bandstand and I’ll meet you there.”

  Standish watched the man go and stood a moment at the curb, his back to the entrance. For the next few seconds there was no traffic and the street was quiet. Overhead the night sky was clear and star-studded, the silhouette of rooftops well defined. He saw all this and heard the city noises from other blocks but none of this regist
ered. On the short drive from his office he had tried to keep his imagination in check but now that he was here a strange sort of fear was working on him and he felt a sense of foreboding and uncertainty as he turned and entered the restaurant.

  His pace was deliberate as he removed his hat, and as he passed the checkroom there was no smiling Sheila Keith to greet him. Behind the counter was a youth that he identified as a bus boy, apparently pressed into service, and this knowledge served to increase his fears. The dining area seemed to be about half full. There were six or eight men at the bar who watched him pass. The most noticeable feature was the strange stillness that seemed to descend upon the room, the lack of conversation.

  He felt other eyes upon him as he skirted the tiny dance floor and continued past the empty bandstand. He pushed the curtain aside and now he saw three members of the orchestra talking in hushed tones, cigarettes in hand. They were leaning against the wall opposite the stairs. They nodded silently, eyes averted, and the detective with the doctor’s bag came to meet him from the rear.

  “Upstairs, Doc,” he said.

  The door of the first of the two upstairs rooms stood open and white fight from the police photographer’s flood lamps spilled into the hall. These same lamps kept Standish from a detailed inspection of the interior but when the photographer noticed him and snapped them off he was only vaguely aware of Lieutenant Ballard and Captain Cavanaugh and the sparsely furnished dusty room.

  Instead his eyes went directly to the oddly bent figure on the floor beside the overturned chair and partly obscured by the table. He could tell from there that it was a man and now the doubt in his mind vanished and he could feel an insidious sickness working on his stomach. For although his profession made him a spectator to death in almost all its violent forms, he had never, as a medical examiner, been called on to inspect the body of anyone he personally knew and admired.

  Moving slowly as he rounded the table, and trying to block out all emotional considerations, he saw first the small ugly hole in Ralph Estey’s head just in front of the right ear, the blackened rim surrounding it. The slight still figure was lying partly on its side, and after his first, all-inclusive look Standish put down his bag, glanced impersonally at Ballard and the grizzled, cigar-chewing face of Captain Cavanaugh, who was first to speak.

  “We’re making it easy for you these days, Doc. You won’t have to do much lab work on this one either. Just give us some idea when he pulled the trigger.”

  Standish paid no attention to the remarks. He saw again the discarded copies of Variety and Downbeat, the dogeared pack of playing cards. He saw the pint bottle of bourbon on the table and noted that it was more empty than full. He put his coat and hat on the shabby couch and took out his notebook as Dr. Lathrop’s training made itself felt. He started to sketch the scene. He said:

  “Who found him?”

  “The piano player,” Cavanaugh said. “And you know why it took so long?”

  Standish had a pretty good idea but to keep Cavanaugh occupied he said: “No. Why?”

  “They call this the musicians’ room,” Cavanaugh said, his tone disparaging. “It’s off limits to everybody but the band. Even Hennessey. Just like they got a closed corporation. Mondays a cleaning woman gives it a weekly going over. Monday night—last night—the joint is closed. Today nobody looks because unless Estey calls a rehearsal nobody’s ever here until evening anyway. Tonight the piano player comes in a little early—about eight o’clock—and finds him. He runs for Hennessey and Hennessey has a fit. He knows he has to call in no matter how much business he’s doing but he makes it a personal call to Ballard and asks him to take it easy. . . . So what do you think?”

  Standish had righted the overturned straight-backed chair and now he eased down and began to test the body for signs of rigor mortis. Just as with Jess Flemming the night before, he started first to determine the condition of the jaw and neck. He moved slowly downward through arms, torso, legs, and feet because the disappearance of rigor occurred in the same order as its onset. When he finished he glanced at the other side of the head and looked up at Cavanaugh.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “How long has he been dead?”

  “I can’t tell you from the condition of rigor alone. It varies in individuals. It makes a difference whether the person died during a struggle or in bed. Powerfully built men develop it slowly and retain it longer—”

  “Estey was no muscle man.”

  “It normally persists for from twelve to forty-eight hours. There’s still some rigor here,” Standish said as though he had not heard.

  “His watch is run down,” Ballard said. “If he wound it at night, I mean as a usual thing, then he died before he had a chance to wind it.”

  “Come on, Doc,” Cavanaugh said. “We don’t want a lecture about chemical changes and the reason for rigor. I’ve heard it before. All we want is some help. Give us a guess, will you?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Any way.”

  “Twenty-four hours. Give or take six hours. If you expect me to put it any closer than that find out when he ate last, and where, and what.”

  “We can give it a try,” Ballard said. “For now we’ll have to assume that it happened sometime last night.”

  “If you’re still hanging on to the theory on Jess Flemming,” Standish said, “you can put it a little closer, can’t you?”

  Ballard nodded but Cavanaugh was not quite so quick.

  “How do you mean?” he demanded.

  “Flemming was apparently shot between eight and ten. If Estey is your man and if he killed himself he must have done so afterward.”

  “Sure. How else could it be?”

  Cavanaugh buttoned his topcoat and settled his hat. He took the dead cigar from his mouth, brushed off the ashes, and relit it. When he had it drawing to his satisfaction he blew smoke at Standish.

  “Okay, Doc. He’s all yours. Unless the lieutenant has some new ideas, which I doubt like hell. . . . See you.” . . .

  When Standish had ordered the body removed he sat down on the couch, his expression somber and a look of discouragement in his dark-blue eyes. The inner sickness was no longer with him but his depression continued. He made a conscious effort to brush aside the mental fatigue that had begun to cloud his thoughts. When his glance touched the pint bottle on the table he asked if Ballard was going to check it for prints.

  “Sure,” Ballard said. “It’s part of the routine.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “It was right beside him. Were checking that too, not that it ever does much good. I never found any prints on a gun yet that were worth a damn. But it was a .32 with two empty shells. We also got the slug.” Ballard went over and sat in the chair next to the table. “We figure he was sitting here when he pulled the trigger. The bullet went through his head almost horizontally and buried itself a little ways in the plaster, which is a break because it will mean it’s in good enough shape for our ballistics man to check with the one you found in Jess Flemming.”

  He pointed to a white scar in the yellowish calcimined wall where someone had extracted the bullet.

  “From what I could see,” Standish said, “I doubt if it was a contact wound. When I shave these sideburns I’ll know for sure.”

  “But it was close.”

  “Not more than two inches, I’d say.”

  “Is there anything about that that’s inconsistent with suicide?”

  “No,” Standish said, and as his thoughts moved on, he added: “There wasn’t any drinking glass, was there?”

  “No glass,” Ballard said, “but do you know a quicker way to get drunk than taking it right from the bottle?”

  “You have a point. So how do you figure it?”

  Ballard tipped his head, his gray gaze curious. “Is there more than one way?”

  “I’d like to hear you say it out loud. But before you start—have you heard from Dr. Tracey?”

  “I got
a call from him around six but no report yet.”

  “What did he say about chloral hydrate?”

  “He said Flemming had some in his system, probably taken not too long before he died.”

  “Okay.” Standish leaned back and reached for a cigarette. “I’m listening.”

  “I think Estey walked in on Flemming last night with a gun and used it. I’m not going to try and guess about the chloral hydrate because I think it’s incidental. There could be several ways to account for it. Somebody else could have slipped him the drug; maybe that Keith girl. But however Flemming got it I think Estey did the job. It’s the only way it adds up. If he had guts enough to tackle Flemming with his fists Friday night he had enough to use the gun.”

  “It’s not the same thing. If Estey had had a gun Friday I agree he might have used it. But this other was coldblooded and premeditated.”

  “Because that Friday-night business had been eating away at him,” Ballard argued. “He probably brooded about it until he couldn’t stand it. He made a threat, said he had a gun. When it got too much for him he used it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “As a medical man or—”

  “Leave out the adjective. I knew Estey pretty well. I’ll even agree that nearly everyone can kill given the proper provocation and the right set of circumstances.”

  He paused, his mind slipping back to his Friday-night talk with the trumpet player, remembering not only the mention of the gun but the statement that if Estey couldn’t run fast enough he’d use it on himself. He saw no point in mentioning it now but he still could not quite accept it as more than the exaggerated statement of a discouraged and recently humiliated man.