Death for Dear Clara

by Q. Patrick

  “Hello … Oh, yes.” The relief in her voice was obvious. She handed the receiver to Mrs. Hobart. “It’s for you, Susan. Long distance.”

  Susan Hobart flushed, hesitated and then took the telephone.

  “Hello? … Oh, it’s you, darling …” She giggled nervously. “So sweet of you to call … and you called at six this evening, too? … Yes, the butler told me. I was out at a cocktail party.… If course, I’m dying to come home, darling, I miss you ever so much, but …” She glanced sideways at Timothy and flushed an even deeper pink. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Goodnight, darling, and k-kisses.”

  Her fingers caressed the receiver back onto its stand.

  “My husband,” she murmured shyly.

  “He’s Hobart the polo player, isn’t he?” said Timothy. “Is he in New York?”

  “Oh, no. He’s too busy running the factory down at Winton. It’s the first time we’ve been separated since—since we were married.”

  Once again, there was a flat moment of silence, broken only by a rustle as Gilda Dawn took a cigarette from a small silver chain purse.

  “Well,” said Timothy, holding out his lighter to the Lotus Lady, “let’s return to Parnassus. I’d very much like to see the stories you took to and from Mrs. Van Heuten, Princess.”

  Immediately, Patricia Walonska rang for the butler and spoke without turning her head.

  “There are some manuscripts on the ebony chest in the library, William. Will you bring them, please, for Mr. Trant?”

  Within a few minutes, the butler was handing a little pile of typewritten sheets to Timothy. The detective glanced through them. Each story bore one of the four women’s names, neatly typed on the first page.

  “Do you know, ladies?” he said gravely. “I told the chief I’d eat these stories if they existed. Very rash of me, wasn’t it? But I shall look forward to reading them. And I’ll charge no fee.” His eyes rested with innocent politeness on the Princess’ face. “Perhaps you’d lend me a briefcase to carry them in. One of those you used this afternoon, for example.”

  The four women exchanged swift glances. The Princess lifted a hand to ring for the butler and then, as though changing her mind at the last moment, moved away through the long hall, disappearing by the rear door.

  In her absence the parade ground discipline relaxed slightly. Beatrice Kennet murmured “God” in apparent soliloquy. Susan Hobart blew her nose on a small lacy handkerchief. The Lotus Lady turned to half profile, the tilted cigarette in her hand carrying out the sculpted line of her chin; a pose Timothy remembered from Love and the Lady.

  “Well, Mr. Trant, have you got anything more to ask?”

  “Why yes, Miss Dawn.” Timothy spoke very quietly. “Someone overheard you making a remark as you left Mrs. Van Heuten’s office this afternoon. You said, if my informant is accurate, ‘Thank God that’s over.’”

  Gilda Dawn looked rather flustered. Sharply, Beatrice Kennet cut in:

  “If she didn’t say it, I probably did. A session with Mrs. Van Heuten wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d mark on your calendar.”

  “But the remark didn’t end there, Miss Dawn. You were heard to say: ‘The hunted expression in her eyes. I shall never forget it.’”

  The Lotus Lady swung round. “Say, what’s the big idea? Are you trying to …?”

  Once again Beatrice Kennet came to the rescue. Her black eyes flashed from Gilda Dawn to Timothy.

  “As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember Miss Dawn perpetrating that cliché,” she said. “Only you’ve misquoted her. She said ‘haunting expression in her eyes.’ She was referring to that secretary. Thought she had a movie face.”

  “Here, Mr. Trant.”

  Patricia Walonska was once more at Timothy’s side, holding out a black leather briefcase. Timothy took it, gazed at it thoughtfully and then slipped the manuscripts inside.

  “Well, ladies …” he glanced from one face to another, “you have told me your story. Let’s assume for a moment that everything you’ve said is absolutely untrue.”

  “What the hell—?” began Gilda Dawn.

  “For the sake of argument, of course. You didn’t, by any chance, visit Mrs. Van Heuten this afternoon because she had been blackmailing you?”

  To his surprise the four women remained completely unmoved. Then, to his even greater surprise, Patricia smiled—a sudden spontaneous smile.

  “I don’t know which is more amusing,” she said, “the picture of Clara Van Heuten as a blackmailer or the idea of any one of us being blackmailed. In spite of the tabloid press, Mr. Trant, women in our position lead very unsensational lives.”

  “Caesar’s four wives.” Timothy’s gravity was faintly mocking. “In other words, Princess, you’d vouch for Mrs. Van Heuten’s respectability as you would for your own?”

  “Offhand,” said Patricia, the smile still lingering in her eyes, “I’d say that Mrs. Van Heuten’s respectability was her major asset.”

  “Which doesn’t alter the fact that somebody murdered her.”

  Timothy took out his note book. For a moment his eyes settled on Derwent 3-2683, the Princess’ telephone number; then they moved to the last number which Dane Tolfrey had called—University 4-3200. It was a long shot, but it might strike a spark.

  “Mind if I use your phone, Princess?”

  Patricia shrugged.

  Timothy picked up the receiver and dialed University 4-3200. He had no idea what number he was calling. At last a voice replied.

  It said: “Columbia University.”

  “Columbia University!” Timothy groaned and put down the receiver.

  But the effect of this call upon the four women had been astonishing. Beatrice Kennet leaned forward tensely. Gilda Dawn’s lacquer-nailed fingers clutched at her silver purse. Even Patricia Walonska looked more than a little uneasy.

  Timothy stared at them in frank bewilderment. What in heaven’s name was there about Columbia University that could put the fear of death into these four incredible women?

  “I’m afraid my call alarmed you,” he said.

  He picked up the black briefcase. “Well, ladies, I think we have all been very patient with each other. It was charming. And you’ll all stay in town a little while longer, won’t you? So that we can have a repeat performance.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to,” said Patricia. “But, Mr. Trant, I hope you’ll see to it that we—that there is no publicity. None of us want to be brought into the press.”

  Timothy sensed in this remark a Cheney threat, backed up by all the force of Cheney influence.

  “I’ll do my best, Princess.” He moved to the door. “By the way—one more question. Do any of you happen to be friendly with a Mr. Dane Tolfrey?”

  “Mr. Tolfrey?” Patricia’s glance showed a studied absence of interest. “I believe he was a friend of Mrs. Van Heuten’s. I don’t know him personally.”

  “And yet he knew you well enough to telephone to you this evening.”

  “Er—yes.” She turned away. “He called to tell me the tragic news. I suppose he thought that, as an old friend of Clara’s, I ought to be informed.”

  “Very considerate of him.”

  Timothy smiled and waved a valedictory greeting with the briefcase.

  Out in the street he paused a moment, giving the four women time to leave the hall. Then he rang the bell once more.

  When the butler arrived, he said curtly:

  “I want to check up on something. Did Mr. Hobart telephone from Ohio earlier this evening?”

  “Why yes.”

  “What time?”

  “It was exactly six o’clock, sir. I remember the clock striking.”

  At that moment there were light footsteps on the parquet behind him. Susan Hobart appeared, very small and fragile. She peered through the open door.

  “Mr. Trant! You may go, William. I’ll see him out.”

  As the butler disappeared, she stepped across the threshold. To the shoulder of her dre
ss she had pinned one of Timothy’s white roses. A modern sylphide with moonlight by Chopin.

  “Oh, Mr. Trant, I’m so glad I saw you again. I—I did want to thank you for the lovely roses. The others were so rude.”

  She looked up at him from round, naïve eyes—and yet, were they so naïve? wondered Timothy suddenly.

  “There’s something I’ve got to ask you,” she said urgently. “Does anyone really think—think anything beastly about us?”

  “How could anyone think anything beastly about anyone so charming?” asked Timothy, smiling.

  For a moment the little multimillionairess stood fingering her purse nervously. Then, as if plucking up her courage, she snapped open the clasp and produced a piece of paper. She thrust it into Timothy’s hand.

  “Mr. Trant, I could tell from the start you were nice—sympathetic. Don’t you think … I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it, that Mrs. Van Heuten wasn’t killed by anyone who—who knew her? She couldn’t have been, could she? There wouldn’t be any motive.”

  In the half light, he could see her eyes bright and strangely determined.

  “I thought that if you in your official position gave out that she was murdered by—by some robber.… Well, that is so much more likely, isn’t it? And so—so much simpler,” she added significantly.

  Timothy was completely at sea. He opened the folded paper in his hand and glanced at it. To his amazement, it was a blank check signed—Susan S. Hobart.

  “I thought that any—any little expense …” the girl was faltering.

  Timothy gazed at her very gravely. He tore the check into small pieces and handed it back to her.

  “I’m a policeman, Mrs. Hobart,” he said quietly, “not a politician.”

  “But, please …”

  “Bribing a police officer is a very serious offense.” Timothy smiled down at her pale, childlike face. “But we’ll keep this to ourselves, won’t we, Mrs. Hobart?”

  “I—I suppose it was silly of me.” The girl fingered the torn fragments of the check. “You’re being terribly nice about it.”

  “And you,” said Timothy, “are the nicest and the most unaccountable of four extremely unaccountable women.”

  X

  Timothy’s hare-and-hound evening seemed only to be plunging him deeper and deeper into mystery. The sole definite fact which emerged from a welter of half-truths and lies was the genuine eagerness both of Derek Muir and of the Princess Walonska to keep dark their relationship with Dane Tolfrey.

  Timothy’s way home took him past the Regina, the pretentious residential hotel where Mrs. Van Heuten’s ninth visitor lived. He dropped in to see whether Barnes had anything further to report.

  He found the plain-clothes detective emerging from a telephone booth, his face puckered anxiously.

  “Trant! I’ve just been calling you. Tolfrey had a visitor.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. And guess who?” Barnes seemed to be taking a lugubrious relish in his news. “That secretary.”

  “Madeleine Price?” Timothy’s eyes showed surprise. “When did she get here?”

  “Dunno. Must have sneaked up the stairs without me seeing her. She came down in the elevator about five minutes ago—seemed kind of scared and jumpy to me. I was just …”

  “What’s Tolfrey’s room number?” cut in Timothy swiftly.

  “604—why?”

  “Come on.” Timothy had started to dash toward the elevator. “I’m very interested to see just what’s left of Tolfrey after Miss Price got through with him.”

  Barnes panted after him. “You don’t think she bumped him off?”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her.” Timothy smiled grimly.

  On the sixth floor, Timothy knocked at Tolfrey’s door. There was no reply. He knocked again. He turned the handle, but the lock was set. Swiftly he sent Barnes for a pass key. When the detective returned, Timothy swung the door open. They both crossed the threshold.

  “My God!” exclaimed Barnes. “You were right, Trant.”

  All the lights in the long living-room were burning. They struck down on the large, puffy form of Dane Tolfrey lying straddled across the floor. Around Mrs. Van Heuten’s oldest friend, as if deliberately arranged in a geometric pattern, were three empty brandy bottles.

  “Is he dead?” asked Barnes weakly.

  Timothy had dropped to his knees. He bent over Dane Tolfrey and then glanced up.

  “Not dead, Barnes, just drunk. Stewed to the gills.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Barnes with the solemn disapproval of a good family man.

  “Get the house-doctor. Quick”

  The house-doctor’s verdict was definite. Dane Tolfrey had passed out following a prolonged and excessive indulgence in alcohol. He was not likely to regain consciousness for at least twenty-four hours.

  Timothy’s face was very grave when he heard the news.

  “The man with all the dope on the case—out of the running for twenty-four hours. If he’s done this on purpose, Barnes, which I strongly suspect, it’s the smartest way of escaping cross-examination I’ve ever come across.”

  He told the detective to put Tolfrey to bed. The house-doctor would report to the police as soon as the ninth visitor showed signs of coming to.

  “And by the way, Barnes,” added Timothy, “while the beauty’s sleeping, you might ship his suit around to the analysis department. Have it back here before the prince kisses him awake.”

  “Okay. And what about that secretary?”

  “Don’t you worry about Madeleine Price,” said Timothy softly. “I’m taking care of her.”

  Late though it was, Timothy hurried off to cope with this latest complication. Soon he was knocking at a third floor door in a small, uptown apartment house. There was no reply. He knocked again—louder. An uncertain voice called:

  “Who—who is it?”

  Timothy grinned. “Open in the name of the law.”

  Almost immediately, the door was pushed open and the secretary appeared in a brown robe of severe opacity She stared at him with the faintest widening of eyes as though he were a rather unwanted beau paying a rather unwanted call rather too late at night.

  “Mr. Trant,” she said coldly.

  “Miss Price.”

  Timothy followed her into the living-room. It was an appropriate setting for Madeleine Price; scrupulously neat, furnished with a mixture of apartment house standbys and a bureau and rocking chairs obviously imported from Terrabinny. Two doors led away, presumably to bedrooms. There was a large framed photograph of a pretty blonde holding a bonneted baby in her arms. Louise, he thought, and Louise’s baby. On the other side of the mantel was the studio portrait of a dark young man with a small mustache and high cheekbones.

  Madeleine saw him glance at it. “My brother-in-law,” she said briefly. “You know, of course, that he’s dead.”

  She sat down, folding her hands in her lap. There was a slight flush in her cheeks. It suited her. She had a good figure, too, beneath the drab bathrobe.

  “I didn’t expect you, Mr. Trant.”

  “And I didn’t expect to come, Miss Price. It’s late and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow”

  “Then what do you want?”

  Timothy shook his head sadly. “I’m disappointed in you; extremely disappointed. If you remember, I asked you to pay no unnecessary calls. Why did you go out this evening?”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.” Madeleine Price smoothed a crease from the brown robe. “I—except for going out to the drugstore for some cigarettes, I haven’t left the apartment tonight.”

  “Really, Miss Price!” Timothy’s voice was gently reproving. “There are dozens of things you could have lied about successfully, but not about a visit to Dane Tolfrey. There’s been a man at the Regina Hotel all the evening.”

  Madeleine did not speak for a moment, then she said softly: “I thought as much.” The color had drained from her cheeks, but she smiled suddenly, disarmingly
. “I just didn’t mention it on the off-chance.”

  “It’s rather juvenile to take off-chances in a murder case, Miss Price.” Timothy’s eyes were unamused. “Perhaps, without lying unduly, you’ll tell me why it was so necessary to visit Mr. Tolfrey.”

  “Do I have to answer that?” Madeleine Price was in complete control of herself again. “If I understand the law, I’m not obliged to say anything without an attorney.”

  “Miss Price, you’re being skittish. Quite out of character. No, there’s no reason why you should tell me anything at the moment, but unless you want to get into rather serious trouble, it might be a good idea to waive your rights as an American citizen and—be a very efficient woman.”

  “All right.” Madeleine rose and moved calmly to the mantel, caressing the silver frame of her sister’s photograph. “I went to see Mr. Tolfrey because I believe he murdered Mrs. Van Heuten. As I suppose I’m quite a serious suspect, I hoped I might get some information out of him that would make my own position less precarious.”

  “So you’ve decided to take up detection. I’m sure you’d make an extremely adequate policewoman, Miss Price. But why this sudden and inexplicable conviction about Mr. Tolfrey?”

  The secretary’s eyelids wavered slightly. “Well, he knew about the back entrance. He—he was obtaining money from Mrs. Van Heuten. And I …”

  “You can spare me the rest.” Timothy had risen too. He crossed to her side, gripping her by the arm. “Sometimes I think I’m the least satisfactory type of person to be on the police force. The chief has a touching belief in the higher education and the human approach, but he overlooks the fact that, to the average person, they are just hooey. If I were a fat, red-faced policeman in uniform, you’d be scared of me, you wouldn’t try to be so damn clever. But a languid young man from Princeton, he’s not frightening, is he? It’s so simple to pull the wool over his eyes. Now let’s forget this inept story about suspecting Tolfrey and hear your real reason for going to see him.”

  Madeleine stood absolutely still, gazing at him, her face strangely arresting in the oblique light from the lamp.

  “What I said is true.” The words came stiffly, jerkily.