Death in the Back Seat

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  “Sure this is the right key?”

  “Certain. Here let me try it.” Jack’s knuckles whitened as he vainly exercised his force upon the key. His face looked queer. “It seems to stick.”

  “It doesn’t,” amended Harkway doubtfully, “appear to fit.” Jack was nervous and annoyed.

  “The key did fit last night. Let me try again.”

  “I don’t think it’s necessary.” Harkway dropped to one knee and, taking out a pocket magnifying glass, scrutinized the lock. A small brass circle, slightly rusted. He handed Jack the glass. “Was this particular lock on the door last night?”

  “I didn’t notice the lock; I simply turned the key.”

  Harkway said slowly, “I believe the lock has been changed since you were here. Done pretty carefully, but if you look closely, you will see certain traces of the job.” He moved his finger around the rusted circle. “Do you see the particles of raw wood? And over here—the fresh scratch?”

  Jack stood up. “I see, yes. But where did the second lock come from? Crockford isn’t New York. Where could a second lock be got in the middle of the night? They don’t grow on bushes.” Harkway hesitated, and I perceived his bewildered groping. He scratched his jaw. “The lock isn’t new.”

  Suddenly and definitely I hit upon the origin of the second lock. A recollection of the cluttered storeroom flashed into my mind. I recalled the cardboard carton filled with odds and ends of hardware—bits of plumbing, window fastenings, a graceful wrought-iron hinge, a bunch (of string-tied keys and old discarded locks. Jack turned to me.

  “Did you say something, Lola?”

  “There were locks in the storeroom; I think this may be one of them.”

  “In the storeroom!”

  “Old locks—junk. The place was jammed with trash.”

  Jack gnawed his lip and I understood, if Harkway did not, the workings of his thought. He was remembering our case against Franklyn Elliott. Small as it was, this bit of evidence weighed in the lawyer’s favor. A straw to indicate his innocence. Even if Elliott had the manual skill to change a lock—which seemed unlikely—he hardly could have obtained the second lock. Such a presumption required far too intimate a knowledge of the house. The person who had gone to the storeroom and found a lock there must have known precisely where to look for what he wanted.

  These speculations slid rapidly through my brain. Abandoning our efforts with the cellar door, we circled around the house. We had been prepared for surprise, and consequently were not surprised by what we saw. There was no hole in the rock garden. There were no swift blurred footprints. The marks on the grass remained, but in a form changed and characterless. They had been trampled over; other marks had been superimposed; it was now impossible to trace the course which had led from the garden to the cellar door a few hours earlier.

  Jack blinked. “A thorough clean-up.”

  “Very thorough. Queer thing—the deliberation of it all. The business must have taken plenty of time and calculation—changing the lock, filling in the hole, spoiling the marks. A cool customer, the chap last night.” Harkway spoke absently. His eyes rested upon the rock garden, narrowed. “Can you show me the spot where you saw the hole?”

  Surmounting the rocks, Jack halted at a patch of loose black earth, which in the dull dawn light resembled not a level grave, but a recently prepared, quite unsinister flower bed. “Here’s the place.”

  Harkway joined him. They both got down on hands and knees and crawled about, searching for something which might have been overlooked. Nothing had been.

  A line of leafless snowball bushes marched somberly along the road at the foot of the garden. I guessed rather than saw a stir of movement there. I squinted. The movement became perceptible. Both men were occupied, and as I opened my lips to summon them, the bushes parted. Silas Elkins stepped forth and hastened up the slope toward the searchers. He looked angry and aggressive.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Harkway stood, brushed his trousers free of gravel. I had never thought of him precisely as an agent of the law. I did now and evidently so did Silas, for at once he lost his defiant swagger and moderated his tone.

  “You got no right here. Mrs. Coatesnash left me in charge. I was to keep trespassers off.”

  “We will pass the matter of our rights.” Harkway indicated the plot of earth in the garden. “What do you know about this?”

  “What is there to know about it?”

  “I’m questioning you. Please remember it! Have you been digging in the garden recently?”

  “I dug the crocus bed, if that’s what you’re driving at. Mrs. Coatesnash told me to. Prepare the crocus bed, she said, the last week in March.”

  “When did you prepare it?”

  “The last week in March.”

  “Exactly when?”

  “A couple days ago, Wednesday, I guess.” Silas glared at the policeman. “You got no right to ask me questions. I don’t need to answer.”

  “You’ll answer or I’ll take you down to jail. Are you saying you haven’t worked in the rock garden since Wednesday?” The threat of jail had again deflated Silas. “I got finished Wednesday morning. I put in fertilizer and was waiting for it to work. I figured on setting out the bulbs today.”

  Silas was a farmer. He had sharp eyes and the perspicacity of country people. If he had prepared the crocus bed on Wednesday, he certainly would have observed signs of previous digging and quite probably would have encountered something buried in the softened ground. He denied noticing anything unusual. The second alternative was equally black. If Silas had not prepared the crocus bed, then he was lying, either to protect himself or someone else. The destruction of the evidence needed to verify our story—the filled-in hole, the smeared marks, the changed locks—had required time, energy and particular knowledge. Silas had these things.

  I studied his face, mute, stubborn and unreadable. Again I attempted to place him as the marauder of the night before; except for the detail of Reuben, he slipped perfectly into the part. My thinking traversed a worn, monotonous trail. Reuben would not have barked at his master; Silas would not have kicked into insensibility his own dog. Yet he must be involved. In what way? Flow?

  In my effort to implicate Silas I viewed the affair from a different angle. I had assumed that the person who had dug the hole also filled it in. It occurred to me that there might be two separate individuals—one person who had prowled the night-black grounds, and a second person who had later concealed all traces of the first. Silas could be the second person. I believed he was.

  Harkway had heard about the dog. At this point I am positive his thinking was similar to mine. He looked thoughtfully down the garden slope.

  “Why were you hiding in the snowball bushes?”

  “I wasn’t hiding. I was working—pruning the bushes.”

  “You were spying on us!”

  “I say I was pruning them bushes.”

  Harkway moved deliberately down the rocky slope. Silas gave a short alarmed cry and followed. There were no pruning shears in the place where he had crouched. There was, however, a spade. It had a bright red handle. Mrs. Coatesnash marked her tools to discourage borrowing. Harkway kicked at the spade. “Do you use this for pruning?”

  Silas was a little white. “I hadn’t got rightly started. I was going back to the. Lodge for my shears.”

  “What were you doing with the spade?”

  “Loosening the dirt a little.”

  “Where? Show me.”

  The earth surrounding the snowball bushes was hard and unbroken. Silas again contradicted himself. He had only begun the spading, he said, when he noticed us. He was confused and frightened. Harkway peered at the spade. Bits of loam adhered to it.

  “Where did you use this spade?”

  Silas said nothing. Harkway turned and stared significantly at the garden above. “I’ll tell you where. I’ll do more. I’ll tell you exactly how you’ve occupied your time this morning.”r />
  “I just got up.”

  “You’ve been up for hours,” snapped the policeman, “and busy every minute. Suppose I list your various activities. It may refresh your mind. You changed a lock on the cellar door; you trampled over certain marks on the lawn; you filled in a hole that was in the crocus bed last night. You were polishing off your work at the crocus bed when you heard us coming around the house. You ran down here, concealed yourself, watched a while, and then conveniently discovered us.”

  Silas wet his lips. “You’re crazy. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He entrenched himself in obstinate denial. The strength of the stupid supported him; his own denials seemed to convince him he was the injured party. He resented our presence; he bitterly resented Harkway’s manner. His alarm lessened and his indignation grew. Shown the lock on the cellar door and the key that did not fit, he glanced suspiciously at Jack and said:

  “Mrs. Coatesnash didn’t leave you keys. I ain’t surprised your key won’t work.”

  “It worked last night.”

  “Nobody gave you permission to be on the grounds last night. If I’d a heard you, you’d have got a load of buckshot for your trouble. Keep off these grounds. I mean it, you better keep off these grounds.”

  Harkway interrupted the tirade. “Bring me the key to the door.”

  “I got no key.”

  “Stand back then. I’m going to break it down.”

  Silas unloosed violent objections. “You got to have a court order. Let me read your order.”

  “I’ll get the order later.”

  At once the policeman launched himself upon the door. The wood groaned beneath the onslaught; for all his slenderness Harkway was a powerful man. Silas darted forward. Jack grabbed and held him. A second time Harkway plunged against the panels. The hinges squeaked agonizingly, the lock broke, the door gave and Harkway stumbled inside.

  Silas, Jack and I entered in a noisy, argumentative body. The hired man continued to threaten and object. We might as well have listened to him, and Harkway could have spared himself his high-handed and illegal effort. The cellar had undergone the same careful transformation that had occurred outside. The furnace was stone-cold and empty: there were no ashes, no clinkers, no traces of a hot quick fire. The third floor told a similar tale. The storeroom door stood invitingly open but the floor was freshly swept—innocent of footprints—and the window was closed and shuttered. The broken door knob had been repaired.

  “Where’s the box you saw, Lola? The box with the locks?”

  “Here it is.”

  “Any locks there?”

  “None now.”

  Silas shot the three of us a look of baleful triumph. “What did you find? Nothing is what you found. The bunch of you,” he ended violently, “are no better than common burglars. I’m going to report that busted door. Don’t think I’m not!”

  If this were acting, it was most effective. A later scene, puzzling and bewildering, played in an identical key, took place at the cottage. Outraged and indignant, Silas stalked ahead of us to regain his injured dog. His wrath rekindled when he examined Reuben; he quit his job on the spot and demanded his pay in full.

  “I’m through with folks like you! Folks that would mistreat a helpless little animal. You’ve half killed him.”

  “Reuben was hurt last night—kicked by someone on the Coatesnash grounds. We had nothing to do with it.”

  “I want my money.”

  Jack wrote the check. Silas pocketed it and picked up the dog. Reuben weakly licked his hand. Silas looked down. His lips twitched, and I realized that even the dour, unpleasant Scotchman could be tender.

  It was too much for me. Silas loved Reuben as he loved no other living being. Why, then, should he shield the person responsible for the dog’s condition? Harkway and Jack admitted an equal perplexity. The results of our night’s adventure boiled down and diminished. To show for hours of hazard and grave danger we had one tiny object—a splinter of charred bone.

  The men decided that the bone should be delivered to Dr. Rand for analysis, and that he should hear a full account of our evening. Typically enough, so Harkway told us, the physician’s laboratory was modern and well equipped and he could provide us with as complete and accurate a report on the piece of bone as any osteologist in New Haven. I had no desire, however, to be a member of the party. I should have gone to bed. Instead, when Jack and Harkway went to Dr. Rand’s offices, I requested that they drop me at the village library.

  I had a plan of sorts. As I have said, Laura Twining was an omnivorous reader and I had often heard her mention the “lovely qualities” of the town librarian. She and “dear sweet” Anna McCall were friends, if you stretched the term. I had guessed in advance the pallidness of the relationship; by reason of visits to city tea rooms I had identified it. A camaraderie built on air, the sort that exists between women unattached and insecure. Bloodless, feeding itself on little gossips, trips to the movies, a rare, shared dinner. Laura Twining had lived a life so solitary that I knew no better place to go for information.

  Anna McCall had the pale, bespectacled look common to librarians. Neat head bent, she was addressing notices when I stepped inside. She saw me. Her facial muscles stiffened. I walked firmly to the desk. Anna McCall informed me promptly that I hadn’t lived in Crockford a sufficient time to be eligible for a card. Her tone dismissed me. She addressed another envelope.

  I mapped out a quick campaign. “I don’t want a card. I have a message for you.”

  She laid down her pen and frowned. “For me?”

  “I had a letter from Laura Twining this morning and she asked me to give you her regards.”

  “So she wrote to you!”

  The implication was unmistakable. I read both jealousy and irritation. I followed up. “Hasn’t she written you?”

  “Not a line.” Indicating a lack of interest, the librarian poured the notices into a basket and started to carry them away.

  I hurriedly intervened. “Just a minute, Miss McCall. You’re a friend of Laura’s, and I would like to talk to you. The letter bothered me—it sounded strange, unhappy—as though Laura were afraid of something, or terribly worried. I thought she seemed changed in February, before she started on her trip. What did you think?”

  Like many lonely people, Anna prided herself upon imagined talents in reading human character. Torn two ways, she hesitated long enough to say, “Laura isn’t exactly a happy person. But then, who is? I must say I’ve never known her to be afraid of anything, except being old and dependent. Maybe you got the wrong idea. Things look different written.”

  “Then she didn’t seem strange to you—when she called to say good-bye?”

  The other woman stiffened. “As it happens, she didn’t say good-bye to me. Too busy, I suppose.” Miss McCall sniffed. “If Laura needs help she knows where to write. Furthermore, she should write.”

  Rising with the notice-basket, she marched to the letter box. I pursued her. “Please, Miss McCall, this is more important than you realize. Important to Laura and to others, too. What did you mean—she should write? Is there a reason she should write you? A special reason?”

  Anna McCall displayed a flash of involuntary aggravation. “She always wrote before. It’s inconsiderate of her not to now. She walked off with a library book that’s weeks overdue. I’ve sent her several notices. Not a word in reply.”

  Slight material for the imagination, this minute variation from the ordered pattern that had used to govern Laura Twining’s life. Still—odd. Laura had been fussy in social duties, punctilious, yet she had neglected to bid a friend good-bye and had failed to return a borrowed book.

  I said politely, “I hope it hasn’t caused you trouble.”

  As if regretting the momentary confidence, Anna McCall withdrew into her shell. “We’ve had no calls for it, but any missing volume breaks up our files, and Laura knows it does.”

  I felt an idle curiosity. “What was the book?”


  “One of the Crockford high-school annuals.”

  “A high-school annual!”

  “Curious, isn’t it?” My surprise apparently echoed a similar surprise in the other’s mind. “What Laura wanted with a nine-teen-twenty high-school annual I can’t imagine, but she should certainly see to getting it back.”

  Since I believed that never again would Laura Twining stroll through a sunny day, stop for a sundae, pause later at the library to exchange a book, I made no reply. Anna McCall studied me closely. “You said this was important, Mrs. Storm. In what way? How? Is Laura sick? Is she in serious trouble? Is that why I haven’t heard?”

  My fancy was running thin. “It’s nothing definite. It may be just a case of writer’s imagination. I thought—I think she is unhappy, disturbed. More than ordinarily.”

  “You aren’t,” Anna McCall said suddenly, and definite hostility crept into her voice, “thinking Laura is concerned with your own difficulties?”

  “No, indeed!”

  My haste failed to carry conviction. “May I see your letter. Mrs. Storm?”

  “I didn’t bring it down.”

  The librarian said almost angrily, “I’m sorry I ever spoke about the book. It simply slipped Laura’s mind, but in a town the size of Crockford people will talk about and twist anything.”

  “I won’t mention it.”

  A nod, not quite relieved, and Anna McCall was gone. Far too restless to turn the pages of a magazine, I occupied myself with the provoking problem of the missing book. A seed catalogue would have been a less unusual choice of reading matter. Except to members of a graduating class or to their families, a high-school annual is the dullest form of literature. I recalled the volume I had edited in student days. A medley of silly personal jokes and youthful prophecies, a lengthy, detailed account of dinners, picnics, dances, pages of photographs. Why had Laura Twining concerned herself with the absurd activities of the Crockford high school class of 1920?

  Absently I traced the figures—1920. Women wore long tight skirts in 1920 and began to bob their hair; men predicted widespread use of the radio and tinkered with crystal sets; an Ohio Senator ran for President. 1920—sixteen crowded years ago. Suddenly like a bell, the year rang in my mind, became particular, distinct from 1919, distinct from 1921. In June of 1920, Jane Coatesnash had been graduated from the local high school. In September of 1920, she had gone off to college and to death.