Death in the Back Seat

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  “When Mrs. Coatesnash left here,” said Standish angrily, “it was generally understood Laura Twining was accompanying her to Europe. So generally understood that everyone in town believes they are both abroad. Why, within twelve hours of leaving Crockford, were Mrs. Coatesnash’s plans completely changed? Why, in the weeks since then, should you, and only you, have known the plan was changed? Will you explain the secrecy?”

  “There was no secrecy,” said Elliott impatiently. “If Mrs. Coatesnash didn’t shout the news in letters home, she was merely trying to protect her companion from ugly gossip. I regret to say the Twining woman was a thief.”

  “Laura Twining a thief! I don’t believe it.”

  “You may be right at that.” The plump shoulders shrugged. “Mrs. Coatesnash thought so, but I wasn’t entirely convinced myself. The evidence seemed rather slight. Would you like to hear the story?”

  “I would!” said Standish.

  “Very well, then. Mrs. Coatesnash and the Twining woman arrived in New York some hours before sailing time and took a room at the Wickmore Hotel. Mrs. Coatesnash was tired from the drive down, and went to bed. She sent the companion out with a fifty-dollar bill to do some last-minute shopping. The bill disappeared; lost Miss Twining said, stolen Mrs. Coatesnash said. She marched her companion down to my office, and a most unpleasant scene occurred.” Elliott sighed reminiscently. “Two screaming women with me between them—you can visualize it! I declined to arbitrate. They fought it out between themselves. The upshot was that the companion lost her job and Mrs. Coatesnash, mad as a hatter, sailed alone.”

  It was pure invention, and we knew it was. But there wasn’t a scrap of evidence to disprove it, a fact of which Elliott was fully cognizant. He sat comfortably on his bed, and inwardly I felt he was equally serene.

  “Where is Miss Twining now?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.” The fat man made a vague, inclusive gesture. “There was a sister in the South, in North Carolina or Georgia, one of the Cracker States. She may have gone south or she may have taken another job in the city. She was far too hysterical to discuss her plans.”

  Elliott’s plump ringed hand—he wore an unflawed solitaire—reached for a humidor which held cigars. “May I ask why you’re interested in Laura Twining? Surely you aren’t working on the premise she’s concerned in my partner’s death? I think it most unlikely.”

  “Miss Twining,” Standish said, “has been murdered.” There was a crash as the humidor struck the floor. The lid came off and cigars spilled to the carpet. Franklyn Elliott was white as chalk.

  “You seem startled, Mr. Elliott.”

  “Good God, who wouldn’t be!”

  “Won’t you agree,” said Standish in velvet tones, “it would have been wiser for Mrs. Coatesnash to tell us frankly that her companion was not in Paris?”

  “Naturally, I agree.” The lawyer’s color came slowly back. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “Your news bowled me over. I didn’t-I don’t know what to think.

  Where did the murder occur? Where did you find the body? When?”

  “Please hold in mind,” said Standish, “that we came to question, not enlighten you. Have you anything to add to your story about Laura Twining? Would you like to change it?”

  “No,” said Elliott. “No. The story stands.” A peculiar quality instilled his tone. “I will say this. If you would withdraw, let affairs take their course, your mystery might solve itself.”

  He was quite himself again. A moment later he had the effrontery to glance at his watch and ask us to excuse him. I was furious. Maybe I wouldn’t make a good policeman, but I would have liked a chance at questioning Franklyn Elliott.

  The four of us left the Tally-ho Inn and drove dismally to the cottage. It was late afternoon, that twilight hour when human energies sink low. I was depressed and I know the two policemen were. We dropped into steamer chairs on the lawn. It was chilly, but neither Jack nor I had sufficient spirit to invite our guests into the house and start a fire.

  “Listening to a liar,” said Standish, with a sigh, “is weary work. If there’s anything in this life which I detest it’s a polished liar.”

  “Personally,” said Harkway, “if we’re discussing liars, I’d rather tackle an educated man than an ignorant clod. You’re more likely to catch the educated man in contradictions. He talks too much. But the clod recognizes his own deficiencies and won’t talk at all.” He glanced instinctively in the direction of the Lodge. “Are you going to call on Silas, John?”

  “I thought so.” Standish rose. I believe he wanted to be alone, but on the pretext that Silas had neglected to return our keys I managed to accompany him up the hill. Silas apparently had spent the day beside the shattered cellar door. At any rate, we found him there, seated on a kitchen chair, a pitchfork across his knees. Without a word or sign of recognition, he handed me the keys to the cottage. To Standish, he said:

  “I’ve been expecting you. I’ve got a complaint to make. Look at that door! Your friend Harkway kicked it in this morning, and he didn’t have no warrant. I want him thrown off the force. Mrs. Storm here and her husband broke in the house last night.

  I want them arrested.”

  Standish sidestepped the issue neatly. He said soothing, empty phrases, granted that the expedition had been illegal, promised damages and redress. He congratulated the hired man upon his devotion to his employer’s interests.

  Silas relaxed a little. “Then I’ll buy another door tomorrow and charge it to the county.”

  “The county will be glad to pay.”

  Standish peered at the hired man. Quick to read the signs of human distress, he observed what Jack and I had observed a few days earlier. For all his bluster, Silas was distrait, worried, not himself. Obviously he was suffering some inner strain.

  Standish had been acquainted with Silas since Silas’s boyhood. He understood the slow, suspicious workings of the Scotchman’s mind, his deathly fear of law, his determination at any cost to save himself. Convinced that the other was a moving spirit in our mystery, he adopted his own methods of establishing it. He did not storm or threaten, or, as Harkway had done, accuse Silas of destroying evidence. He set himself to woo the hired man’s confidence. He piped a soft and gentle tune. In vain.

  Categorically and in particular Silas denied knowledge of Laura Twining and her movements. He professed astonishment that she was not in Paris. No, he hadn’t seen or heard from her. Standish was prepared for denials. But he had anticipated a tightening of tension, a show of fear, alarm. He drew a blank. A puzzling blank. Oddly, the mention of Laura Twining appeared to bring Silas an obscure relief.

  “She was one of your talkers, Chief, but I never bothered to listen much. A nice lady—if Mrs. Coatesnash fired her it’s news to me. They was thick as thieves the day I drove them to New York.”

  “What time did you leave them there? What time did you get back to Crockford? On February seventeenth?”

  Silas scratched his head. “Gosh, lemme see. Traffic was pretty bad that day. I took ’em to a hotel, helped ’em settle, then turned around and started back. It’s a good four-hour drive; we left here at noon. I must have got back by nine or tea o’clock.”

  Could Silas sit so quietly if he had blood on his hands? Would his faded eyes be tranquil if he knew Laura Twining were dead? Murdered? I looked through the broken door at the furnace, cleanly swept, cold and secret.

  “Now, Silas, I want you to listen carefully. I’m told the two women quarreled after you left them. Over a fifty-dollar bill. My information is that Mrs. Coatesnash accused her companion of theft.”

  “Sounds funny to me. I’d’ve said Miss Twining wouldn’t steal a pin. Did you ask her about it? What does she say?”

  “Laura Twining has disappeared. Vanished. Dropped from the earth.” Standish’s voice was purposely loud. “I’m beginning to believe she’s gone for good and all.”

  Normal curiosity was to be expected. The hired m
an exhibited none. He idly dug his pitchfork in the earth. “Likely she’ll turn up. A passel of her stuff is still in the house. I wouldn’t worry about Miss Twining.”

  Standish, I knew, had hoped for a startling reaction. He looked bitterly disappointed. His lips tightened.

  “So Laura Twining left things in the house? What kind of things? Baggage?”

  “No, sir. She needed her bags for the trip. She packed a cardboard box with stuff that wouldn’t go in. Books mostly, I guess, and magazines. She saves old magazines. Just trash, but it meant something to her. I’d swear she’d come back for it.”

  If Silas knew of the vanishing traveling bags, the unused passport and letter of credit, he hid his knowledge well. Standish scuffed at a heap of gravel.

  “Then Laura Twining hasn’t been on the place since you took her down to New York?”

  “Ain’t seen hide nor hair of her. She couldn’t have got in if she had come. She ain’t got keys; I ain’t myself. Mrs. Coatesnash carried ’em with her. She always does.”

  Standish abandoned the unfruitful topic. He settled himself upon the doorstep. He tried another tack.

  “Silas, are you acquainted with Franklyn Elliott?”

  It was a random shot, but surprisingly it told. Silas woke abruptly from his lethargy. He suppressed a start. His Adam’s apple fluttered in his throat.

  “You mean Mrs. Coatesnash’s lawyer?”

  “Exactly. Do you know him?”

  “Never laid eyes on him.”

  “Sure of that?”

  “Sure I’m sure. What’s Franklyn Elliott got to do with me?”

  “You seemed—well—taken aback when I mentioned him.”

  “I been reading about him in the papers. That’s all. Elliott’s nothing to me. I’m nothing to him.”

  “Take care, Silas. Has he ever written you? Have you ever written him?”

  “No.” The hired man developed an irritatingly irrelevant grievance. “I ain’t rich enough for New York lawyers. Folks with money can run to the law; it’s no help to them without. I get into trouble. What happens? I stay in trouble. Franklyn Elliott don’t pester his head with the likes of me.”

  The new vein had played out. Silas had said his say and we were left to face hazy, ambiguous speculations. Why had the mention of Franklyn Elliott disturbed the hired man, when the more sinister mention of Laura Twining had not? Was there a hidden link between Silas and the lawyer?

  Standish shifted his bulk on the step. “Silas, it pays to tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing is to be gained protecting others. Not in a murder case.”

  Silas was frightened. There was no question of it. A look of pressing worry came on his face, a look of terror, of stubborn desperation. The bones in his thin face seemed sharpened, the hollows beneath his eyes became pronounced.

  “I’ve told the truth,” he said a little wildly. “Go ahead and take me off to jail if you don’t believe it. I’d be as well off in jail as I am now. Maybe I could get some sleep at nights and…” he broke off suddenly, and made an attempt to pull himself together. He went on in a different tone, “You’ve got nothing on me. Nothing you can prove.”

  “This is your chance,” said Standish sternly, “to tell me what I’m convinced you know. We’re going to find out who murdered Hiram Darnley; we’re going to find out a lot of other things. No matter who it hurts! Someone is going to hang!”

  “I hope to God,” said Silas Elkins, “it happens soon.”

  Standish turned at once on his heel and stalked past the hired man and into the Coatesnash house. Silas meekly accepted the police chiefs statement that he was acting on his own authority, and did not object. No one bade me no. I followed. Since morning Silas’s attitude had undergone a striking change. He seemed eager to assist; he made suggestions; he produced Laura Twining’s string-bound, cardboard suit box. The box contained two cotton housedresses, a pair of rubbers, two books on astrology, a pamphlet on spiritualism, a dozen well-thumbed popular magazines. There were no letters, nothing personal.

  Aided by his volunteer assistant, the police chief searched every cranny of the basement, first and second floor. Unobtrusively I tagged along. My presence was unofficial, and I took no part in the search. Standish himself was handicapped, slowed down because he didn’t know exactly what he was hunting for. He opened drawers, chests, looked into bookcases and wastebaskets, crouched on his haunches to peer under beds and bureaus. He found mouse droppings, dust. Of Laura Twining’s missing traveling bags there was not the slightest sign.

  Gaining Mrs. Coatesnash’s third-floor bedroom, Standish flung back rusty, velvet draperies, pushed the shutters wide and let the fast-fading sunlight in. A canopied four-poster bed, with the mattress rolled and tied, bedding folded on a chair. A flowered carpet, gray with lack of sweeping, a chaise-longue, outlines blurred beneath a wrinkled sheet, a bureau top decked in tarnished bottles. Obviously the room had not been used for weeks. Or entered.

  Standish attacked the bureau drawers, the dresser drawers, plowed methodically through the contents of a painted chest. He fingered yellowed linen, patchwork quilts, smelled lavender and musk. He closed the chest, crossed to close the shutters. A gleaming metal sliver buried in the carpet caught the sunshine and his eye. He stooped. His expression grew startled, incredulous. In his hand he held a broken hypodermic needle. Silas stood very still. I hardly breathed. Standish turned.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “It belongs to Mrs. Coatesnash. She said it was for medicine—medicine for her heart.”

  “Medicine, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. I saw her use it once, stick it in her arm. She got mad at me, and made me promise not to talk about it. I never did.”

  Like the genii in the bottle, Luella Coatesnash seemed to materialize in her dusty bedroom. Was the old lady a drug addict? Had she filled an empty life and soothed an ancient sorrow with cocaine dreams? Did the explanation for a ten years’ avoidance of society, a taste for being left alone, lie in this gleaming broken needle?

  Standish was an experienced policeman. He had considerable knowledge of the psychology of the warped, drug-laden brain. He knew what drugs did to people, how they bred suspicions, sharpened dislikes into hatreds, magnified the petty slight into the unbearable injury. I watched him, and from his unhappy face could almost read the workings of his mind. If Mrs. Coatesnash were indeed a drug addict, then anything was possible. But he pocketed the tell-tale metal sliver without a word.

  Silas preceded us into the storeroom. He gave me a malevolent glance, but since Standish made no objection I slid inside. The police chief worked patiently through the confusion and the clutter. He poked at chair cushions, shook the couch, opened the trunks, bringing forth ballroom dresses of the fifties and feathered hats. He had expected the evidences of wrongdoing to be vague, but here was nothing at all. Nothing except an old house, overrun with the debris of penny-pinching generations, shut up while its mistress was away.

  Rubbing grime from his hands, Standish groaned and stood still. “I’m done.”

  “There’s still the attic,” said Silas.

  The attic was reached by a ladder at the foot of the corridor. Standish looked at the ladder, started to mount toward the trap door at the top, suddenly changed his mind. It was past seven o’clock; he had spent three exhausting hours in the house, and he was hungry. He decided to delay further investigation until he received a report from Dr. Rand. Did I fancy it? Or did Silas look disappointed? I myself had a queer desire that Standish complete the search and enter the attic, but of course could not suggest it. As later events were to prove, my desire was well founded. The decision of a hungry, discouraged man cost at least one other life.

  Standish and I returned in silence to the cottage. Jack and Harkway had settled down to cocktails, and I invited both policemen to supper. As I was starting for the kitchen, Standish stepped to the telephone, requested the long-distance operator and put in a call to Paris, France. I stopped in my tracks,
and I must confess my first thought was of our telephone bill. I suppose I showed my feelings, for Standish cupped his hand over the mouthpiece to say: “This one’s on the town, Mrs. Storm. I thought you young folks had earned the right to listen.”

  In the end, however, the call was not completed. Luella Coatesnash could not be reached. She was, according to an exasperated operator, safely in the Hotel St. Clair but in bed, sleeping under the effects of sedatives prescribed by a French physician who refused to let her answer the phone. The operator relayed the information that Mrs. Coatesnash was suffering from a heavy cold.

  “A heavy cold!” said Harkway with a short laugh. “Well, maybe. But my own guess is that there are nerves on more than one side of the Atlantic.”

  “At that,” said Standish philosophically, “it will probably be as well to talk to Mrs. Coatesnash after Dr. Rand reports on the bone. Doc should complete his analysis some time this evening. Don’t look so disappointed, Mrs. Storm. You can sit in on the call when it’s finally made. Let’s say at the station, after we finish that meal you’ve promised us.”

  “But,” I said, alarmed, “now you’ve warned her, Mrs. Coatesnash may awake, get up, walk out of the hotel and simply vanish.”

  Said Standish with a somber look at me, “No. Mrs. Coatesnash won’t vanish. I haven’t been so stupid and prejudiced as you’ve imagined, young lady, though the Lord knows I’ve been plenty stupid. A guard is posted at the Hotel St. Clair. Mrs. Coatesnash may not realize it, but she has been under observation some days. Since the day,” he finished grimly, “I discovered Franklyn Elliott was staying here in Crockford.”

  On this note we sat down to supper. The sun fell in the west and outside the windows darkness gathered. I drew the shades. No one had much to say. Standish, who had admired and respected Mrs. Coatesnash, continued in his melancholy mood. Even Harkway seemed subdued. After the hectic day, the inaction, the sense of waiting, was hard to bear. At length I broke the silence.