“But now,” the doctor went on, “we must abandon this retreat-to-the-womb consolation of wishful thinking. Cats and murder may be coincidence once, but not a second time. And when you add to that the coincidence of Europe—”
“Of Europe?” Fergus repeated quickly. “Oh. Of course. Damn, I missed that. Never was good at dates. But the Lusitania—”
“—was sunk on May 8, 1915,” the doctor concluded. “There’s a tempting parallelism in this. In each case a long struggle of European war, brought in each case to its climax of abrupt horror by one clear and terrible act: in 1915, the sinking of the Lusitania; in 1940, the invasion this morning.”
“Damn cases and parallels!” Horace Brainard yelped. “What are we going to do?”
“Why, Horace,” Dr. Arnold smiled. “Is not that for you to say? I had thought that you were the man of action. But this is not mere historical background. Surely you remember what the sinking of the Lusitania meant to us?”
“Don’t, Hugh,” said Stella Paris.
“But we must, Stella. You may recall, Mr. O’Breen, that I toasted one Jay Stanhope at dinner? He was the brother of the ill-starred Martha. A flaming young idealist, one of the pure in heart whom we more mundane beings find at once so puzzling and so irresistible. It was Jay who was responsible for our group. It was he, and perhaps to a lesser extent Martha, who held us all together. He meant much to each of us. He died on the Lusitania.“
“And you think then that the war hysteria and the final culminating shock has something to do with these throat-slittings?” Fergus was pacing again. “Could be. But—and it seems to me I have a dim memory of asking this question before—can you tell me more about Martha Stanhope?”
“Very little, I fear. We—or all but one of us—know no more than your Mr. Ferguson.”
“The hell with Ferguson. I want your story. Tell it your way.”
“There is little to tell. She was found in her room at the hotel; it was the old De la Playa near Santa Eulalia, which used to be so fashionable in carriage days. The whole wedding party, aside of course from Horace and Catherine, had decided to convene there after the ceremony. We danced and drank till one or two, and an hour or so after we went to bed a loud noise—a scuffle, as I recall it, or possibly a scream—woke us. We hurried to Martha’s room; we all had rooms in that same corridor. We found her dead.”
“We being?”
“Stella, Lucas Quincy, James Herndon, and myself.”
“Who found her first?”
“I am not sure. Herndon, I believe.”
“And the knife?”
“Was found later outside the window.”
“Ground floor?”
“Yes. A burglar could have entered easily enough. Her jewel box was open, but so far as we could tell nothing had been taken. We supposed that he might have been panic-stricken and forgotten his purpose.”
“Impractical of him. And that’s all?”
“One cannot remember details for twenty-five years.”
“Not much help specifically, is it?” Fergus observed. “But limiting. Damned limiting.”
“Four suspects,” said the doctor quietly. “And two of them here in your council of war.”
“And how about the cats—the 1915 cats? If I remember right, one of them was Martha Stanhope’s?”
“Yes. The other was Alys’.”
“You wouldn’t remember anything there after so long? Anything that might limit the group even further?”
Stella Paris answered. “I don’t see how. We were all of us in and out of the Stanhope home all the time. Martha was … I suppose you might almost call it stage-managing the wedding.”
“Which cat died first?”
“Martha’s. He was a yowling marauder and the neighbors hated him. We thought at first it might be spite. But then when that sweet little kitten of Alys’ was killed …”
“And you never believed that the man who had killed those cats killed Martha?”
“No, we didn’t. We—”
“But good God in heaven!” Fergus exclaimed. “Just how much coincidence could you swallow in your group?”
“Be honest, Stella,” Dr Arnold said.
“But I am, Hugh.”
“Perhaps you think you are. We were afraid to believe, Mr. O’Breen. The cats alone could mean some sadistic maniac living near the Stanhopes. Martha alone could mean a prowler. Together they had to mean what we resolutely refused to admit.”
“I,” said Fergus, “may be an outgoddamnedrageous sentimentalist, and probably am; but it hits me like this: A murderer is one thing, but a bastard that’ll cut the throat of a little girl’s kitten … How did Alys take it?”
“Badly,” Arnold said. “I gave her another to console her, but she would have nothing to do with it.”
“She never did have another cat,” Stella Paris added. “She wouldn’t even play with … with Valentino at my house.”
“And about Valentino now, Miss Paris: What happened there?”
“It … it was after a dinner party. Janet found him on the back porch when she was helping me clean up.”
“When?”
“Wednesday night. Day before yesterday.”
“And who was at the party?”
“James and Hugh and Lucas and Alys. And of course Janet and I. She and Hugh had got in from New York that morning. It was a sort of advance party to let her meet all the weekend people. Excepting Hugh, she hadn’t seen any of them for five years and—”
“That’s another thing. Why did Janet leave home five years ago? Or no,” he paused as he noticed the glare on Brainard’s face; “that can ride. There are more urgent matters. Same cast then for Valentino as for Martha Stanhope?”
“Same cast,” said Stella flatly. “But couldn’t it be … ? After all, there are sects that—”
“Look,” said Fergus firmly. “Coincidence is fun, but let’s not have an orgy of it. Remember what the doctor said about self-deception. And for Corcoran?” He looked at Dr. Arnold.
“It was shortly before you two young men arrived. James Herndon had finished dressing early and gone out for a pipe on the beach. He … happened on the poor wretch. He was still alive; so James came for me at once. I saw that the wound was not serious. Corcoran needed nothing more than rest and good care, and I decided that there was no purpose in needlessly alarming the party until I had had time to think things out.”
“Everybody dressing …” Fergus reflected. “Enough rooms, or any people paired off?”
“Young man,” Horace Brainard snorted, “my guests have never had to pair off until Fate threw loutish greasers and wild young men among them!” But his voice lacked its usual vigor.
“So nobody checks on anybody. Everybody with lots of quiet private time for dressing … or throatcutting.—Miss Paris.”
“Yes?”
“One more question, and I think it’s the most important I’ve asked yet. Did you tell anybody here, anybody at all, about my profession?”
This was not the question Miss Paris had expected. “Why no. No, I didn’t.”
“Not even Janet?”
“Not even Janet.”
“Then …” Fergus’ pacing was jerky and nervous. “Then why the ever-sweet hell should—”
“Just a moment, Mr. O’Breen.” This was the most courteous address which Horace Brainard had yet accorded him. “You’ve been asking all the questions so far. Now let me ask one.”
“Fair enough.” Fergus halted and leaned back against the table. With any luck, this should be the point he’d been building up to. “Shoot.”
“What is your purpose in all this huggermugger? What are you planning to do?”
Fergus lit a cigarette and half wished he’d brought the brandy decanter along. He’d aimed at this, and Quincy’s proposition was tempting; but he didn’t care for dealing with Horace Brainard. “My purpose? Well, Mr. Brainard, you’d probably put it this way: My purpose is to get some money out of you.”
> “And how do you propose to do that?”
“It’s like this. You’re all in serious danger on this island. Ramirez and Corcoran and 1915 can’t leave you in much doubt of that. Now I’m a man with professional experience in handling just that kind of danger, as Miss Paris realized when she invited me. But I don’t like to bring my harp to the party just for the hell of it. I’m a working man.”
“Yes?” Brainard snapped dubiously.
“Yes. Suppose we put it like this: There are two immediate needs: to find out who your throat-slitter is, and to get you all off this island in safety.”
“And … ?” Brainard’s tone was that of one who fears the worst.
“I can satisfy those needs. So let’s say five hundred dollars for either of them and a thousand if I bring them both off.”
“One … thousand … dollars?” Horace Brainard spaced his words with exaggerated irony. “Young man, it’s you are the madman.”
“Hold on. Don’t let a frontal attack on your pocket-book distract you from a flanking movement by a murderer. You’re on a hell of a spot here. Dr. Arnold’s theory was very pretty, but that boat didn’t just run off by itself after conking Hokay. Somebody wants us stranded here without protection. Very specifically, somebody wants us stranded here without my protection. You’re not a poor man, sir. Your friends’ lives, to put it noble-like, ought to be worth something to you. I won’t stress the danger to your own.”
Brainard seemed unsure of himself. “And if I refuse to accede to this … this blackmail?”
“Hell,” said Fergus harshly, “that’s easy. I just rear back on my fanny and take damned good care of myself. “Watch the stiffs go by.”
Brainard tried to repress a shudder. “Very well. When we are all safely back on the mainland, you shall have your reward. Now. What’s the first step in your campaign?”
“My first step? Drawing up a contract.”
“A contract?”
“Sure. What other chance do you think I’d have of collecting that grand once we’re all safely back on the mainland?”
Horace Brainard’s face was a model of outraged innocence. “Young man,” he declaimed, drawing himself up to what he fondly dreamed was a full height, “you can go to hell. I am quite capable of protecting my guests—even from such cheap swindlers as you. Come, Hugh! Stella!” And he stormed out of the library.
Fergus snapped his fingers and silently translated an historical remark of General Pierre Cambronne. What you need for success as a private detective is not skill nor intelligence nor strength nor knowledge; it’s a careful study of the works of Dale Carnegie. He’d muffed it again, and two thousand dollars had stamped out of that door.
The other two had not followed their host. “Mr. O’Breen,” Stella Paris began hesitantly.
Fergus jumped down from the table and resumed pacing. “That’s that,” he said curtly. “Now, doctor, the first item on our agenda—”
Miss Paris let out a relieved sigh. “Then you are going to help us, even though Horace—”
“Hell,” Fergus grinned, “you didn’t think I was such a heel as our host, did you?”
He could feel his Evil Angel wince.
ii
“This young Irishman …” James Herndon ventured. “Do you think Alys was right? Is he a detective?”
“There, James,” said Lucas Quincy. “Don’t fret over it. You know that you’re safe so long as you have me with you.”
“Am I? But it’s not that, Lucas. It’s something else. And if he is a detective, I ought to talk to him.”
“Don’t hurry. You’ll have your chance, no doubt. But think about it first. You know what happens, James, when an excitable, sensitive man talks too much. People can get curious ideas.”
“But I—”
“I’m speaking for your own good, James. Haven’t I looked after your—say your best interests for twenty-five years now? Don’t I know what I’m talking about?”
Alys Trent came up to them and leaned over Herndon. “Whazzamazza?” she demanded in a sort of soothing babytalk. “Uncle Jim looks sad. Can’t little Alys cheer him up maybe, huh?”
Herndon brushed away her hand. “Please, Alys.”
Lucas Quincy let out his bark of a laugh. “Don’t drive her away, James. She’ll do you good. Take your mind off of troubles. Isn’t she lovely to look at tonight? What does she make you think of? Doesn’t she remind you of—”
“No!” James Herndon was on his feet. Every nerve of his tall body seemed to tremble, “No, Lucas. For God’s sake!”
Alys stared at him blankly. “Did I do something?”
“Sit down, James.” Lucas’ voice was harsh and irresistible. “Sit and think. And don’t talk wild. Remember this detective’s of the new breed. It’s even possible he might be interested in modern poetry.”
Alys was still blank. She couldn’t see how such a foolish remark could make a grown man like James Herndon shudder.
“Our first job,” said Fergus, “is the bonfire.”
“The bonfire?” Stella Paris repeated frowning. “I’m sure Horace would be delighted to have you celebrate his anniversary so spectacularly, but why?”
Dr. Arnold nodded understandingly. “It might work.”
“I don’t guarantee it,” Fergus warned, “but it’s worth taking the chance. You see, of the two objectives I named for Brainard, I can’t help thinking that getting us all safe off this island is the more important. Sure, I’d like to know, abstract-like, who our throat-cutter is; I’d like to see him neatly put away. But I think the rest of us’ll be a damned sight safer from his little attentions if we get the hell off this island and back to Los Angeles.”
“We are … trapped, aren’t we?” said Stella Paris. “I don’t think,” she added with fine understatement, “that I like it.”
“Your accident-theory about the launch, doctor, was a masterpiece of improvisation. I salute you, sir. But the time is past for any policy of appeasement. And now you can admit that you didn’t believe a word of that theory yourself.”
“Of course not.”
“That boat was not stolen. Ramirez was knocked out, the motor of the launch was started, and the boat was sent straight out to sea. Or no, fortunately not really that. From the lee side of the island here it would go ashore someplace on the coast if it had enough gas, as it certainly must have had. But there’s no telling when it would be found and identified, or whether people could ever figure out what it meant. He wasn’t taking many chances that way.”
“You mean,” said Miss Paris slowly, “that one of us deliberately sent that launch away to … to trap us all here?”
“Exactly. And trapped we damned well are. It’s all building to something. Valentino and Ramirez and even poor Corcoran are an overture, a nice grisly overture full of sinister chords on the doublebass and menacing thuds from the kettledrums. But the overture’s about finished now. The stage is all set for something that we still don’t know the script of. And it’s up to us to keep the curtain from going up.”
“Hence the bonfire?”
“Hence the bonfire. If we build a nice big hell of a blaze that can be seen from Santa Eulalia, some curious person may decide the house is on fire and dash forth to rescue us.”
“Or,” suggested Dr. Arnold cheerfully, “he may think what a wonderful wienie-roast we’re having.”
“It’s a chance we’ve got to take. There’s no other boat. It’s too far to swim. There’s no telephone. And I don’t think any of us is capable of whipping up a radio sending set out of a few random wires and the generator plant. Of course by tomorrow we’ll be all right; but the sooner we can get off of here, the happier I’ll be.”
“And why should our position have improved so much by tomorrow? Do you plan to send heliograph messages when the sun rises?”
Fergus grinned. “That’s a point. I never thought of that. You know Morse?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. And five’ll get you t
en that nobody else in the company does either. We simply aren’t a properly equipped Stranded Party. But tomorrow, you see, we’ll receive a visit from the Los Angeles Police Department.”
“E. S. P., no doubt,” said the doctor dryly. “You must send a paper on this to Rhine.”
“Nothing so wonderful. I knew what I might be walking into. I hoped I could forestall it, but if … if I failed, there should be somebody to take over. So I left a note for my friend Andy Jackson. He’s a Lieutenant on Homicide. If he doesn’t hear from me by phone or wire tomorrow, he’s to take steps. And they’ll be shrewd ones.”
The sergeant at the desk said “Hi! What’s all the rush?”
Detective Lieutenant A. Jackson paused briefly. “Just got a sure tip on Campetti.”
“That bastard? Where’d they find him?”
“They haven’t yet. That’s why the rush. But Gino talked. He says Campetti’s headed for Las Vegas with that waitress that saw the shooting. The old gag: marry’em and they can’t testify.”
“It may be old,” said the sergeant sagely, “but it works.”
“Not this time. I’m flying to Las Vegas, and I’m stopping that wedding.”
“Or a slug,”the sergeant added optimistically. “Well, have yourself a time at Las Vegas. Hit the jackpot for me.”
“Thanks.” Jackson’s unbelievably long legs resumed their rapid stride.
“Hi! Almost forgot. Guy left this note for you.”
“Thanks.” Lieutenant Jackson crammed the note into his pocket unread and immediately forgot it.
“Then it behooves the murderer,” Dr. Arnold reflected, “to get his business over with tonight …”
Stella Paris looked at him oddly. “Please, Hugh. Don’t talk like that. You sound almost as though …”
“As though I were the cat-killer? And why not? Hasn’t Mr. O’Breen demonstrated that it must be you or I or James or Lucas? One of these four—or did he include Alys?”
“Alys!” Miss Paris laughed.
“Don’t be too hasty, Stella. Alys was remarkably precocious in many respects. Who can say how many?”
“Glad you brought that up,” said Fergus. “It leads us right into the next point, which is what comes after the bonfire. I think you’ll agree, doctor, that we ought to get some sleep tonight. I’ll admit the safest possible procedure might be for all of us to sit up all night in one room where everybody could watch everybody. From a material point of view, that’s ideal. But psychologically—”
The Case of the Seven Sneezes Page 9
