The Case of the Seven Sneezes

by Anthony Boucher

  An officer with a florid face came into the little room. Jackson had a faint memory of seeing that red-veined nose at some point earlier. “Well?” he asked.

  The officer laid Jackson’s warrant down on the table, “you won’t be needing that.”

  “Campetti … ?”

  “Some guys’ skulls don’t take so good to cement. You saved your state a trial, Jackson.”

  Lieutenant Jackson shuddered. Sending a man to the gas chamber is one thing. Being, personally, his executioner is another.

  “The doc says you better sleep if you can,” the officer went on. “And he ain’t too sure if you’d ought to travel for a couple of days.”

  Jackson leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. Then he sat up too suddenly and groaned at the pain in his shoulder. “Can I use a phone?”

  “Operator” he was saying a little later, “put me through to the Chief of Police in Santa Eulalia, California.”

  The dot that was Blackman’s Island rolled round in earth’s diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees. The sun came over the Liebre Mountains and the San Rafael Mountains and the Santa Ynez Mountains and hit Santa Eulalia, where the only light still burning was that of the all-night poker game at Police Chief Donovan’s. The sunlight went on across a short stretch of the ocean and struck the wharf of Blackman’s Island and the beach and the window of Corcoran’s cabin.

  Fergus woke with a start and tried to grip his empty hand on the revolver that wasn’t there. Automatically he grasped the flashlight as a club and stared up straight into the revolver.

  “Mr. O’Breen,” said Tom levelly, “you’re trapped. No use struggling.”

  Still half asleep, Fergus gasped. Then he grinned slowly. “Had me going there for a minute,” he confessed.

  “I couldn’t resist it. It makes me feel a little better for what happened to me on guard duty.”

  Fergus held out his hand. “Think I can be trusted with the Smoker’s Companion again? Thanks. Now watchman, what of the night? What went on while I slept?”

  “Nary a thing. Our tiger just isn’t interested in goats.”

  Fergus began to pace. “The Clue of the Unsprung Trap,” he muttered. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the … Come on back to the house. We’re going to rouse this party and get back to work.”

  “I read a novel once,” said Tom, “where the detective’s subconscious outdid his intellect; he went and dreamed the solution. Did you have any such luck?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Fergus slowly. “But I wouldn’t say no.”

  Big John Donovan, Chief of Police of Santa Eulalia, hung up the receiver with a snort of disgust. “Some damned fool card says he’s the Los Angeles Police Department and we should go chasing out to Blackman’s Island and catch him a murderer. I told him where to put his murderers.”

  “How’d you know he was phony?” Officer Koplinski asked.

  “How’d I know? Hell, Koppo, the dumb cluck was phoning from Las Vegas. And expecting me to believe it was the L. A. Department! Probably one of the boys around town went and eloped and wants to have some fun celebrating. That Hankin boy’s been hanging around the Union Hi a lot; I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe he and that red-headed Spanish teacher …” Chief Donovan settled his firm-muscled bulk into a grunting chair and picked up the deck. “Dealer’s choice? Well boys, how’s about deuces and one-eyed jacks?”

  Officer Koplinski frowned unsatisfied.

  ii

  “God bless you, Stella!” Fergus ejaculated piously as he finished his tomato juice and started in on toast and coffee. “Henceforth I want you in on all my murders. Anybody who can produce refreshments at just the right time—”

  “But what got you up so early?” Tom insisted. “Was anything … going on in the house?”

  Stella Paris looked comfortable, capable, and capacious in an old flannel dressing gown and shabby mules. “We all talked so much about getting our sleep,” she said, “but I don’t think we did much sleeping. I know I didn’t. And when dawn came, I decided I might as well be up and doing. Help everybody start the day more cheerful.”

  “Are the others waking up too?” Fergus asked through a mouthful of toast.

  “I heard people stirring.”

  “Then do me a favor. Get ’em all downstairs for me. I’ll be in the library checking over my chart. Keep ’em happy with breakfast till I send for them. Will you do that?”

  Stella paused in her steady beating of a bowl of batter. “As soon as I get this coffeecake in the oven.”

  Fergus sniffed the spicy air and breathed a happy sigh. “If it’s as good as your coffee, madame—and by the way, what’s your secret on that?”

  “No secret. Just careful measuring and don’t let it perc too fast.”

  “I’ll remember.” Fergus finished his coffee reluctantly. “Come on, Tom. I want an appreciative ear.

  The library looked even more desolate in the growing sunlight. Fergus spread the chart on the table and began to explain.

  “Now here along the top are the keypoints, the outbursts of violence: Martha Stanhope, Miss Paris’ cat, Corcoran, Ramirez, and Quincy. By Ramirez, I mean the slugging; the stabbing’s wide open, with no check on anybody. And the evidence on the first cats is too vague by now. These five are our vital points.”

  Tom rubbed the back of his head. “Don’t I count?”

  “You and Herndon are included under Quincy. That triple play was all one occasion. Now down the side are the names of—well, of the survivors. I’ve even, for the sake of completeness, put in the younger generation.”

  “And the result is?”

  “Here. Look. YES means opportunity on that occasion; NO means a convincing alibi. Queries mean there’s something phony about the evidence, or I haven’t got it all yet. See what you can make of it.”

  Tom looked.

  Stanhope

  Valentino

  Corcoran

  Ramirez

  Quincy

  Horace Brainare

  ?NO

  NO

  ?NO

  NO

  ?YES

  Catherine

  ?NO

  NO

  ?NO

  YES

  ?NO

  Dr. Arnold

  YES

  NO

  YES

  YES

  YES

  James Herndon

  YES

  NO

  YES

  YES

  NO

  Stella Paris

  YES

  NO

  YES

  YES

  YES

  Tom Quincy

  NO

  ?YES

  NO

  ?YES

  NO

  Janet Brainard

  NO

  NO

  YES

  YES

  NO

  Alys Trent

  NO

  NO

  YES

  YES

  NO

  “It doesn’t seem to tell you much,” Tom said at last.

  “No. Not right on the surface. It’d be so simple if there was one person with a straight YES reading all the way across, or one victim with only one possible YES in his column. But just the same I think this does tell us something. Let’s take them up one by one.” He set the chart back on the table and began pacing.

  “First Martha Stanhope, the poor damned child. That’s twenty-five years ago. Nobody remembers anything clearly, and we can only generalize. Any member of the wedding party could have done it, and obviously every one of our generation could not. As for the Brainards themselves, I put those queries because Horace was pretty egoddamnedvasive on just where he spent his wedding night.”

  “Oh. Didn’t you know?” And Tom related Janet’s story of the Purloined Letter ruse.

  “So?” Fergus observed. “Neat. Very neat. I’ll file that away for eventual personal use, God forbid.” He came back to the table, crossed
out the two queried NO’s and made them plain YES’s. He gazed at the chart with satisfaction. Even your contradictions, your impossibilities looked clearer and more surmountable when neatly diagrammed. Between this and the Unsprung Trap …

  A goose walked over his grave. He suppressed his shudder and went on talking. “Now on Valentino the evidence is all too clear. Unless we’ve got a total conspiracy on our hands, no one who was at the Hotel de la Playa when Martha Stanhope died could possibly have killed that cat. The Brainards were here on the island, and everybody at Stella’s party gives a blanket alibi to everybody else. Which by the way: you notice what’s opposite your name there?”

  “Query yes,” Tom smiled.

  “So where were you on Wednesday night? For the record?”

  “Faculty meeting.”

  “What time?”

  “Seven thirty on.”

  “And before that?”

  “Dinner with two colleagues in Westwood. We met around six.”

  “All of which’ll be easy enough to check. You can cross out that query and put a straight NO if you want.”

  “Sir,” said Tom, “you don’t take the record seriously enough. We’ll leave it this way till you’ve checked.”

  Fergus grinned. “O. K. Stet, as Janet’s puzzles keep saying. Now on Corcoran: You were drinking steam beer with me on the mainland. The Brainards were dressing together, but pretty unspecific on alibiing each other. Everybody else is way out in the open. Could be anybody.

  “On Ramirez and the boat-stealing: Horace Brainard was with Quincy and me. Everybody else was wrapped in seely solitude.”

  “There’s another query here on me.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “‘For the record,’ as you say, I was unpacking after finally managing to ditch Alys. Janet didn’t seem too friendly at the moment. What does that make me?”

  “Cross off the query. That’s a simple YES for you on Ramirez. So nobody has even a straight NO record. This is a sweet mess. And yet I’ve got a feeling it’s clearing up there before our very eyes. And high time too, before—” There was tension and apprehension in his voice. He broke off and paced in silence. When he resumed, it was with his normal bantering agility.

  “And now for the major event of the evening: Brainard gives his wife an alibi, but she most unkindly fails to reciprocate; so there’s two queries. Arnold was with Ramirez, who can’t very well check. Herndon and you are fellow victims. Stella Paris guarantees Janet, who was unromantically asleep and therefore can’t vouch for Stella. The one thing I do know is that Alys was with me.”

  “Yes,” said Tom reflectively. “That’s something you don’t forget.”

  “You’re telling The O’Breen?” As he paced, his green eyes began to grow even more alive. “You know what I did while I was with Alys?” he asked slowly.

  “Spare my blushes.”

  “There’s a psychologist for you! Nothing of the sort. I sneezed. Seven times I sneezed.”

  “Didn’t some physiologist once say that a sneeze was the closest spastic parallel to an orgasm?”

  “Not my sneezes. Or at least not my—”

  Tom was studying the revised chart carefully. “It’s like those logic puzzles in Janet’s magazine where Brown runs the locomotive and Mr. Smith lives in Scranton only Robinson has never met the conductor.”

  “And when you reduce those to chart form they make sense. Everything falls into shape and you’ve got a straight clear line of deduction.”

  “And with this?”

  “Add the sneezes, Tom, and you’ve got it. Exactly as in my dream. Your gag was right. I did dream the solution, and the sneezes prove it. Fit them into that chart, and the blossom starts to unfold. Only I’m going to be a bastard and hold out on my stooge. You’ll know soon enough.” His pacing was lither, more rapid, and his eyes gleamed triumph.

  “And what’s the next step?”

  “For you? Go out and see how Stella made out with the round-up. Keep ’em all herded together and as happy as possible. And as soon as she comes down, send Alys in here. And Dr. Arnold as chaperon.” He was whistling vigorously as Tom left the library.

  “Sit down,” Fergus said courteously to the white-haired girl.

  She remained standing, sullen and speechless. She had forgotten to remove her makeup last night, and her face was a smudgy mess. With equal negligence she had pulled on the same sweater this morning, tear and pin and all.

  “You prefer to stand? Then doctor, at least you can make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you.” Dr. Arnold did so. “I notice a certain light of success in your eye, Mr. O’Breen; but I am surprised that you should summon simply the two of us. I expected you to make an announcement to the entire group this morning.”

  “First I want to ask Alys a question. Rather, I want to tell her I know the answer to one. And I think this is going to call for a little reinforcement. Here you are, my sweater-ripping little badger.”

  Alys snatched at the bottle and gulped, but still said nothing.

  Dr. Arnold waved it away. “Before breakfast? But now, O’Breen, let’s hear your question.” His eyes were fixed on Alys, and there was fear and concern in them.

  “My answer,” Fergus corrected. “I want to tell Alys that I know she’s responsible for Quincy’s death.”

  “The hell!” Alys snorted.

  “Isn’t it just?”

  “The hell I am. You know that. You were with me, you …” She was far more imaginative in her description this time.

  “I know,” said Fergus calmly. “I know. I didn’t say you killed him. I said you were responsible for his death. You roused sleeping dogs. You let all hell loose in this tight little group, and your future husband died of it.”

  She turned to Arnold. “He’s crazy. What does he mean? What did I do?”

  “I’ll tell you.” Fergus picked up his chart. “You slit Valentino’s throat.”

  Chapter 12

  “Technical psychology,” Fergus began, “isn’t my long suit. I’d a damned sight rather have good solid factual clues you can get your teeth into. But when the two meet, as they do here, I find it pretty congoddamnedclusive. Now doctor, if you were covering up with a fancy patch of technical nomenclature, what would you call Alys?”

  Dr. Arnold regarded the quivering girl. There was something almost like pity in his gaze. “I think I should say,” he observed levelly, “that she is a sadistic nymphomaniac.”

  “Big words,” said Alys contemptuously.

  “Like ‘vicious bitch’ any better?” Fergus suggested.

  For answer Alys grabbed the bottle again.

  “You see, my sweeting,” Fergus went on, “emotionally you never outgrew the ’20’s. For you the sun still also-rises. The world’s changed meanwhile. Even youth has changed. But for you Lady Brett Ashley is still the exciting prototype. You’re holding onto youth as tenaciously as Mrs. Brainard; only for her Being Young means being coy and fluttery, and for you it means being cruel and avid and generally bitchy. You want Excitement. You want to Live with the biggest L in the type foundry, which for you means lots of liquor and lots of laying. But you’re getting older, and the bottle and the hay aren’t quite enough.”

  Alys wavered on her feet and looked down at the detective with pitying scorn. “All right, Galahad. So I am a bitchous vish. What’s it to anybody but me?”

  “It might have been something to Lucas Quincy.”

  “Or even,” Dr. Arnold added, “to his friends.”

  “Lucas knew what I was like. He knew what he wanted. And he knew marrying me would mean he could get it regularly. He didn’t care what I did the rest of the time.”

  “He cares now,” said Fergus.

  “You talk a lot.”

  “Sure. That’s how I get ideas. That’s how I notice things. Like knowing that you killed Valentino.”

  Alys made a suggestion.

  “Remind me,” said Fergus, “to tell you some time about the young man
from Calcutta. He did just that. But at present we’re interested in your own peculiar practices. You wanted Excitement. Drink wasn’t enough. Sex wasn’t enough. And the third great excitant is blood.

  “You’ve probably been to Tijuana for the bull-fights, haven’t you? You know what it feels like to watch the blood come and the muscles twitch in that last spasm?”

  She said nothing, but her hands clenched and her tongue slipped for an instant between her lips.

  “You knew about the Stanhope case. You must have heard rumors in this group. You probably went ahead and read up on it, learned about the cats. You were excited now by the war news too. You liked that. It wasn’t close enough, but it was something. And you thought, ‘Isn’t it funny, here it is the anniversary of the wedding and the war again and … supposing there should be another cat?’”

  The tempo of his speech doubled and his voice rose in pitch and intensity. “Was it fun? Was it up to your expectations? Standing there on the back porch, holding that furry little black beast in your arms, pushing that white-mustached head back to bare the throat, pulling the knife across and turning it quick so the blood dripped on the porch and not on your coat? Was it a new thrill, was it—?”

  Alys’ voice cut across his. It was low and throaty, and her breathing was heavy. “It was better than anything any man ever gave me.”

  No doubt was possible. She meant it.

  Dr. Arnold looked up horrified. For once his reaction was anything but impersonal. “Alys! You admit that you—”

  “Sure!” She whirled on him. “Why not? What’s life for but to get all the thrills you can out of it? And what’s a cat? You doctors! You cut them up alive and pretend you’re doing it for the good of humanity, but I’ll bet you get one hell of a boot out of it! Don’t you? Don’t you?” She turned away from him. “Just another lousy damned hypocrite. You all of you want your thrills. This bastard here chases down murderers and fools around with corpses. I suppose that’s all for the good of humanity too? Nuts! I’m honest with myself. I know what I’m out for. And I get it.”