Death for Dear Clara

by Q. Patrick

“Dane Tolfrey going up to Mrs. Van Heuten’s office after the murder?”

  Louise nodded. “He didn’t see me till he was almost touching me. And he—he didn’t seem surprised. He just peered at me, laughed and said: ‘Thank goodness it’s you, Louise. I haven’t got a cent and I was going to touch Mrs. Van Heuten. How about saving me the trouble and loaning me two dollars for a taxi?’”

  It was strange hearing those alcoholic words of Dane Tolfrey’s coming from this slight, blonde girl. They recreated that scene on the fire-tower with astonishing vividness.

  “I—I didn’t know what to do,” Louise whispered. “I didn’t have much money with me and I knew he’d never pay me back. But—I was so scared and eager to get away. I just gave him two dollars and ran down—down the fire-tower out to the street.”

  “Mr. Tolfrey told you he was going to borrow money from Mrs. Van Heuten?” It was Madeleine’s voice, sharp, eager.

  “Why, yes.”

  Madeleine turned triumphantly to Timothy. “We know Mr. Tolfrey had already borrowed three hundred and fifty dollars from Mrs. Van Heuten earlier in the afternoon. He couldn’t have been going back for more. Don’t you see? He was lying!”

  “I always said you’d make an admirable policewoman, Miss Price,” said Timothy. “But you shouldn’t jump at conclusions. The banks were probably closed when Mr. Tolfrey got that check. He might easily have wanted some ready cash for a taxi.” He turned gravely to Louise. “You told George Gruber what had happened?”

  Mrs. Campbell had gone rather pale. “N-no.”

  “Not even your future husband?”

  “I—er—” A faint pink stained the whiteness of Louise’s cheeks. “You see, I hadn’t said I would marry him then. It was only afterwards when we were driving home. He—he’s asked me before, but it was only then, after that terrible thing had happened, that I realized how much I need—someone.”

  “Oh,” said Timothy softly.

  “And don’t you see how I couldn’t ever tell him then? If he’d known I’d just seen Mrs. Van Heuten dead, he’d have thought I wanted to marry him because—because my job was gone and I n-needed money.”

  “Which wasn’t your real motive?”

  “Of course not.” Louise smiled unexpectedly. “And please never let him know. He’s—he’s so sensitive. I’d hate to have him think that.”

  At that moment there was a loud honking from the road. George’s voice trailed in to them, loud and cheerful.

  “You and the boy friend better make it snappy, Maddy, if you want to catch that New York plane.”

  Both the sisters stared at Timothy in tense silence. Then, very softly, Louise asked:

  “Well, what are you going to do, Mr. Trant? Take me back to New York?”

  Timothy rose. “I know you’ll be sensible, Mrs. Campbell. Whether or not I believe your story has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Your fingerprints are on the knife, and if my superiors want to question you, they’ll send someone to fetch you. At the moment, I’ll have the local police keep an eye on you.” He smiled reassuringly. “You understand why I have to do that.”

  He scribbled his private telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to her.

  “This,” he said, “is just in case you should remember anything you forgot to mention to me, Mrs. Campbell.” He turned to Madeleine. “I’ll leave you a few moments for domestic adieus, Miss Price. I’ll be outside with George.”

  Madeleine joined him almost immediately and George, driving with talkative zest, reached Bainesville airport five minutes before the New York plane was scheduled to depart.

  Timothy’s proffered wallet was scornfully dismissed.

  “Why, Maddy’s as good as my sister-in-law already,” said George indignantly. Then he gave a sly wink. “And maybe you’ll soon be a member of the family yourself.”

  “I’m not any too optimistic,” murmured Timothy, glancing sadly at Madeleine.

  George planted a chastely fraternal kiss on Miss Price’s brow.

  “I kind of know how you feel about Louise and me, Maddy.” His eyes dropped shyly. “I just want you to realize that our place’ll always be home for you. Guess Elly couldn’t get along without her Aunt Maddy. Nor Louise either.”

  Madeleine gave him a tiny, grateful smile, whispered “Thanks, George,” and followed Timothy into the waiting-room.

  The plane was crowded and, owing to the intervention of an aisle, conversation for Timothy and Madeleine was strictly limited. But at Scranton they had five minutes in which to stretch their legs. They strolled together up and down the dry turf.

  “Mr. Trant,” asked the girl with sudden determination, “you’ve got to tell me one thing. Do—do you think my sister murdered Mrs. Van Heuten?”

  Timothy looked at her thoughtfully. “If I’m frank with you, will you be frank with me?”

  “Of course. Of course.”

  “Very well. No, Miss Price. I do not think your sister murdered Mrs. Van Heuten. Now I want you to answer my question. You’ve been lying to me, trying to put me off the scent all the time because you thought your sister might have been guilty and you wanted to protect her, haven’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Madeleine calmly. “Hadn’t you guessed that?”

  “And just why were you protecting your sister so unscrupulously?”

  Madeleine swung around. “Wouldn’t you do anything for someone if—if you’d killed her husband?”

  “I see. Very obtuse of me. Now for the really important question. That threatening telephone call last night—was it just a ruse in your campaign for shielding Louise?”

  “No. It was genuine and I told you exactly what was said.” A faint smile ruffled the composure of Madeleine’s face. “I admit that I fainted rather unnecessarily to make it more dramatic. But the call was genuine.”

  She was still smiling. But Timothy was not. His mouth was very grim. He was hoping against hope that Inspector Jervis had not let him down—that he had made sure the newspapers would carry that announcement of Mr. Dane Tolfrey’s slight accident and of his temporary concussion.

  XV

  When, travel-stained and weary, they finally reached the Newark airport, Timothy grabbed an evening paper. He gave a little grunt of relief. The news of Dane Tolfrey’s accident stared up at him from a brief column on the front page.

  The drive in the taxi sent him into a mild doze. He started when he felt Madeleine’s hand grip his arm.

  “Look!”

  He shook himself and opened his eyes. They were almost in the center of New York now. The taxi was stopping for a traffic light, and the secretary was pointing excitedly at the stream of pedestrians hurrying across the street.

  “That girl with the green hat!” she exclaimed. “It’s the girl who came into Mrs. Van Heuten’s office. The girl who wouldn’t give her name.”

  Timothy was instantly alert. “The lady who prophesied murder! You’re sure?”

  “Positive. I saw her face plainly.”

  “They say all good murder cases have one major coincidence.” Timothy sprang up and pushed open the door of the taxi. “Here’s our coincidence.”

  He reached the street just as the car jolted forward.

  “Charge the fare up to the Homicide Bureau, Miss Price,” he shouted.

  With a grin, he hurried precariously through the traffic to the side-walk.

  Luckily he had had a good look at the girl with the green hat. And the hat itself made her easy to trail. In a few moments he had caught up with the last of Mrs. Van Heuten’s visitors and had laid his hand on her arm.

  “Excuse me. Haven’t we met somewhere?”

  The girl turned on him a very green, very cold pair of eyes.

  “If we had,” she said, “I imagine I’d have remembered the shirt.”

  “That’s strange. I could have sworn I’d seen you in Mrs. Van Heuten’s office the afternoon she was murdered.”

  The girl stopped dead. Her clean-cut face had turned rather pale.r />
  “Who—who are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter particularly. I was wondering whether you felt like a cup of coffee—” Timothy pointed—“in that drugstore.”

  The girl hesitated, looking swiftly around her.

  “I’m—I’m meeting a friend. I’m rather late. I think—”

  “And I think you could be a few minutes later, don’t you?” Timothy’s voice was very firm.

  “All right.”

  Brusquely the girl turned into the drugstore. They found a secluded booth and Timothy ordered coffee for her and a sandwich for himself.

  “I suppose you’re the police,” said the girl at length.

  “Incidentally. Do I have to guess who you are?”

  “My name’s Helen Bristol.”

  “Bristol!” Timothy looked up from his sandwich in genuine surprise. “Bobby’s wife. How dumb of me not to have guessed.”

  “You know him?” The question was indifferent.

  “I used to sail toy boats with him in the Park. But I won’t waste your time in childish reminiscences, Mrs. Bristol.” Timothy glanced at her over his coffee. “There’s something I’ve been very eager to ask you. You’re credited with the most sensational remark to date in the Van Heuten case. Twenty minutes before the body was found, you said to the secretary: ‘Mrs. Van Heuten’s both a fool and a knave. It’s a damn dangerous combination. Some day someone’ll probably murder her for it.’ What exactly did you mean by that?”

  “I meant exactly what I said.” Deliberately the girl produced a cigarette from her pocketbook and lit it. I happened to be very angry with Mrs. Van Heuten at the time.

  “And what made you so prophetic?”

  The girl shrugged with rather bored impatience. “It really has nothing whatsoever to do with the police.”

  “Even so, I’d like to hear it.”

  “Well, it was about Bobby.” Helen Bristol tapped cigarette ash into her saucer. “I work down at Salter’s, the publishers. They published Bobby’s first book, Parabola. And he’d just got Mrs. Van Heuten to send them his second.”

  “I understand they turned it down.”

  “Yes. That—that was just it.” Helen Bristol looked up rather uncertainly. “Bobby came in that afternoon and Larry—Mr. Graves, the chief editor—told him the news. I was frightfully sorry about it. But—well, the book just wasn’t any good. Larry couldn’t possibly have taken it.”

  “But what’s this got to do with Mrs. Van Heuten?”

  “Everything.” Helen Bristol’s lips tightened. “I knew how much it meant to Bobby to have the book turned down. And it meant much more because Mrs. Van Heuten had always been telling him what a genius he was, praising him, giving him the craziest ideas of what a success he was going to be. I always thought it was just plain stupidity on her part. And then, when I glanced through the reports on the book and saw that she really hadn’t thought much of it, I realized she’d been cruel, too. It is cruel to be insincere with sensitive people like Bobby.”

  “So you went round to the Literary Advice Bureau,” asked Timothy quietly, “and you prophesied murder merely because Mrs. Van Heuten hadn’t been outspoken enough to tell your husband his book was bad?”

  “If you care to put it that way.”

  “That was a very loyal thing for a wife to do, Mrs. Bristol, particularly when she’d asked for a divorce on the same day.”

  Helen Bristol’s cheeks flushed; the green eyes gleamed dangerously.

  “What damn business is that of yours? I—well—” her voice faltered “just because I want a divorce that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being fond of Bobby, does it? I am fond of him—terribly fond. He’s so like a little boy, helpless—”

  “And yet you’ve given up wanting to help him? I happen to know he’s very much in love with you.”

  “Don’t you think I haven’t thought of him as well as myself?” Helen Bristol lit another cigarette jerkily. She pushed her empty coffee cup away. “I’m not a sentimentalist and I can face the fact that I’m not in love with Bobby. It wouldn’t be any fun for him living with me. Heaven knows, we’d tried it for a year. We just shouldn’t ever have got married. It was my fault, I guess. I was older than he and ought to have known better. But somehow it just happened. Salter’s used to have the office right underneath the Advice Bureau. Bobby was always dropping down from Mrs. Van Heuten’s when we were publishing his first book and, well—” she threw out her hands—“I was just foolish; that’s all. And I don’t believe in patching up something that won’t work.”

  “You’re a very materialistic young woman, Mrs. Bristol.”

  “I have enough sense not to make a martyr of myself. Besides, I—I’m in love with someone else.”

  “Mr. Graves?”

  Mrs. Bristol’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “From the way you said his name.” Timothy grinned. “Masculine intuition. Incidentally, Mrs. Bristol, is Bobby willing to give you a divorce?”

  “He is.” The girl laughed shortly. “With rather ill grace, though. He wrote me a letter yesterday about it. I think you’d enjoy it as you seem to share his opinion of me.” Impulsively she opened her pocketbook and tossed Timothy a letter. “At least, it’s got far more of a kick to it than his novel.”

  Timothy smoothed the paper and read:

  Dear Helen:

  Doubtless you’ll be anxious to know whether I’m ready to give you the divorce. I haven’t any idea how much it costs but, whatever the price, it’ll be cheap so far as I’m concerned. I know you don’t entertain a very lofty opinion of Mrs. Van Heuten’s intelligence. But she was intelligent enough to point out several interesting facts this afternoon which I hadn’t stumbled upon myself. When we were married, I had prospects of becoming a very rich man. When you asked for a divorce those prospects no longer existed.

  I believe you haven’t a particularly lofty opinion of me as a novelist, either. But it seems more desirable to be unsuccessful in selling one’s novels than to be successful in selling oneself.

  ROBERT BRISTOL.

  Timothy glanced up from the letter and gazed at the determined face of the girl opposite him. Mrs. Bristol was a very interesting person. He had never before met a woman who would have shown to a complete stranger a letter which did herself so little credit.

  “Incidentally, Mrs. Bristol, why didn’t you go to the police as soon as you heard the news of Mrs. Van Heuten’s death? It would have saved us a lot of trouble.”

  “Would you have gone?” asked the girl bluntly. “After all, I didn’t have anything to tell anyone. I didn’t even see Mrs. Van Heuten. There wasn’t any point in wasting time with questions, examinations and things—for nothing.”

  “As I said before, you’re an admirably materialistic young woman.” Timothy folded Bobby’s letter and put it in his pocket. “You don’t mind my keeping this, do you?”

  “Whatever for?”

  “It shows that Mrs. Van Heuten was circulating rather unpleasant rumors about you.” Timothy picked up a piece of sugar and tossed it in the air. “If ever we need one, it gives you a motive for wanting to kill her.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Helen Bristol.

  “Being ridiculous is part of my job, Mrs. Bristol. By the way, you didn’t notice anything strange that afternoon you visited the Advice Bureau?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just strange.”

  Helen Bristol pulled on her gray gloves. “Well, there was the secretary if that’s what you mean. She behaved rather oddly.”

  “Miss Price? What did she do?”

  “It was just the way she stopped me from going in to see Mrs. Van Heuten. She looked at me as if she could kill me.”

  “I wish I’d been there.” An involuntary smile moved Timothy’s lips. “You and Miss Price—the irresistible force and the immovable object.”

  He picked up the check and rose.

  “Well, Mrs. Bristol, you have a date and I’m all worn
out. Let’s call it a day.”

  He took her address and telephone number.

  “By the way, Mrs. Van Heuten called Salter’s on the afternoon of her murder. Do you know whom she spoke to?”

  Mrs. Bristol nodded.

  “She talked to me.”

  “She did? What about?”

  “About Bobby’s book,” said Helen Bristol impatiently. “She asked me to put in a good word for it—with Mr. Graves.”

  “Very kind of her,” said Timothy.

  “Kind!” Helen glanced at him scornfully. “Like hell she’s kind.”

  Timothy was staring at her thoughtfully.

  “Just one more question. That’s not the coat you were wearing when you went to the Literary Advice Bureau, is it?”

  “Why, no. It’s down at Massine’s being altered. What on earth do you want to know for?”

  “Routine, Mrs. Bristol. Just routine.”

  They moved out together onto the street. Timothy watched her striding purposefully away through the sidewalkers. An extremely matter-of-fact girl, he thought, who knew exactly what she wanted out of life—and exactly how to get it.

  On his way to headquarters Timothy dropped in at his apartment in the hopes of snatching a few minutes in which to read the manuscripts which he had collected from Mrs. Van Heuten’s visitors.

  Waiting for him, he found a pile of letters and Oscar’s record of the day’s telephone calls. There was also a telegram.

  Stuffing the letters and Oscar’s note, unread, in his pocket, Timothy ripped open the envelope of the telegram. His eyes widened and went suddenly grave as he read:

  ADDENDUM TO COMMUNICATION STOP WHY NOT COME YOURSELF TO CELEBRATE MY RETURN TO CONSCIOUSNESS STOP PARTY TEN P.M. REGINA STOP YOU’LL BE AMUSED WITH FELLOW GUESTS AND PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN RE MY DISCOVERY OF POOR CLARA’S MURDERER.

  Signed: TOLFREY.

  Timothy glanced at his watch. Twenty past ten.

  “The fool,” he muttered between clenched teeth. “The damn fool.”

  For the first time since the case had begun his young face was drawn, haggard. He hesitated a moment; then he hurried to the telephone and called Barnes at the Regina.