Death in the Back Seat

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  I envisioned a Franklyn Elliott gone berserk, swinging a bloody kitchen chair. I suppose I went a little pale. Jack noticed, but Harkway did not. He eyed the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Which brings us up to Elliott’s suit.”

  “His suit?”

  “The light-gray suit he wore yesterday.”

  At this moment Standish walked down the hill and into the cottage. He had missed his lunch, and gratefully accepted coffee and a heaping plate of cinnamon toast. While the newcomer munched and drank, the conversation was resumed. It appeared that when Elliott quit the Tally-ho Inn to go to the Lodge he had worn a light-gray suit. Bill Tevis remembered because he had thought the lawyer was “rushing the season.”

  Harkway glanced at me. “It’s unpleasant to think about, but after the fight Elliott would have had to get rid of his suit. Immediately. He must have been spattered with blood from head to foot. I can understand how he might contrive a temporary escape except for that. I don’t see how he could manage a change of clothes.”

  “A bag perhaps in his car?”

  “The car was empty. The garage attendant took it around to the Inn and is certain.”

  “In some ways,” Standish said, “strong as it is, I don’t like this case. We’ve got almost too much on Elliott. His threats, his presence at the Lodge, that stupid flight.” He added wearily, “We’ve got too much in one sense, and not enough in another. We haven’t been able, for instance, to establish that there was friction of any sort between Elliott and Hiram Darnley, and the Lord knows we’ve tried! So far as we’ve been able to discover, Elliott had no real reason for wishing his partner dead. The fact that Mrs. Coatesnash had a motive for wanting Darnley murdered would hardly seem sufficient to weigh with Elliott. And yet it appears he beat Silas to death to prevent his uncovering the original conspiracy.”

  “There might be some hidden motive.”

  “No doubt there is.” The policeman moodily sipped his coffee. “But even so the problem isn’t solved. How does Laura Twining fit into the picture? What’s become of her?”

  “Don’t you believe that Laura’s dead?”

  “I do indeed. I think,” said Standish slowly, “that the unfortunate woman was murdered. I don’t know why; I don’t know how. It may be barely possible that her body was buried in the rock garden.”

  “But the bone…”

  “The best of specialists can make mistakes. I’m not concerned at present over a three-inch splinter of bone. I have other worries.”

  “Our worry at the moment,” said Harkway, “is catching Franklyn Elliott. The details will have to wait.”

  Standish nodded. “I daresay you’re right. Certainly the time for guessing has passed. We can only hope that with Elliott’s arrest we can tie up the loose ends in our case.”

  But he sounded strangely doubtful. Jack and I were much perplexed. Neither policeman had any more to say.

  Presently Standish glanced at his watch. Reuben was seldom agreeable to company, and Jack had previously bundled him off to the kitchen. I heard him scratching at the door. A plaintive signal that he was ready for supper. Jack excused himself and went to feed the dog. When he returned, the policemen were putting on their coats.

  I spoke then of the dog. “Shall we keep him?”

  Standish smiled. “As you choose. You needn’t worry about other claimants. If the dog is a nuisance, we can drop him off at the pound.” Jack and I had grown fond of Reuben, and in this informal manner gladly took possession of him. Standish glanced toward the window. It was dark now, and the Lodge was lost in shadows. He sighed. “Things up the hill are in an awful mess. You can picture it. No one in charge. Mrs. Coatesnash dead, one of her lawyers dead, the other missing. We simply boarded up the Lodge and left it. I daresay the court will name other executors soon. Mrs. Coatesnash named Darnley and Elliott.”

  Standish and Harkway were at the door before Jack remembered Annabelle’s purse. He ran for it. “Here’s something you can drop off. It belongs to Annabelle Bayne. She forgot to take it home with her last night.”

  We had been curious, but we had not touched the purse. Standish opened it at once. Two five-dollar bills, a smart enamel compact, a matching lipstick, an initialed cigarette case in white and yellow gold, a ten-cent tintype of Annabelle and Elliott, linked arm in arm, photographed in New York. The lovely familiar arch of Washington Square showed behind them, and both were laughing. Jack and I had once had tintypes made at Washington Square. On such a day. In such a mood.

  Jack said rather quickly, “You will leave the purse with her.” Standish thrust the purse into his pocket, abruptly changed his mind. “No. I’ll leave it here. You’re friendly with the woman. Or friendlier than I am. The purse will give you an excuse to call. Maybe you can get her talking. That’s more than I can do!” I distrusted the experiment, and, with circumstances as they stood, had little taste for prying into Annabelle’s secrets. I felt sorry for her.

  Standish left the purse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Burglar Alarm

  After supper Jack was restless as a cat. He prowled up and down the living room until I became almost as restless as he. He turned on the radio. The news broadcast reported the unceasing search for Franklyn Elliott. He had vanished twenty-four hours earlier. He had not been found. Nor had the yellow car. Jack snapped off the radio, went into the dining room and closed the door.

  I heard him shifting furniture and wondered what he was doing. I went to see. What he was doing—in view of past events—seemed normal and familiar. He had rolled up the rug and was looking under it. He had taken down the pictures from the wall.

  I said patiently, “I should think there had been sufficient investigation of this house. Or have you got the habit?”

  “I—I had an idea, Lola.”

  “Would you mind explaining it?”

  Jack hesitated. “I don’t like to make you nervous.”

  “Your air of mystery is not a tonic.”

  “All right then. I believe Elliott wanted something that was hidden in the house when he broke in last Wednesday night. I believe he went off without it. I mean to find it.”

  The notion had previously flickered through my mind, and I had hurriedly banished it. It now occurred to me that if Elliott had wanted something in the cottage as recently as Wednesday he probably would still like to lay his hands on it. I had a dismaying vision of the lawyer, clad in a stained gray suit, creeping noiselessly through a dark spring night upon the cottage.

  I said faintly, “You mean he might come back for it?”

  “Of course not, goop! He’s getting away from Crockford as fast as his plump legs—or rather his yellow car—will carry him. He’s in too deep to bother us again or show his face in Crockford. However—” Jack paused on the word. “—however, I agree with Standish that there are missing links in the case. Lots of them. I’m not sure Elliott’s arrest will clear everything up. If I could find something in the cottage—some clue—if I could figure out why he came here three nights ago I’d feel better satisfied.”

  “Jack!” He turned guiltily. My suspicion was confirmed. “Do you think someone else—not Elliott—but someone else might break in? Is that why you’re hunting?”

  Jack’s explosive denial was neither convincing nor reassuring, and I retired that night in an uneasy frame of mind. I had hoped that Elliott would be under arrest when I awoke in the morning. It was a vain hope. The newspapers reported nothing. Jack telephoned the police station before we breakfasted, but Standish apparently had removed the receiver from the hook, for a continuous busy signal was reported. There was nothing to do but wait. After breakfast Jack resumed his self-appointed researches, tapping the walls, examining the moldings and baseboards, rapping at the fireplaces, until I was distracted. The wallpaper in the cottage was casually applied. He loosened it further. He got plaster in the rugs. He made a wreck of the house. He found nothing.

  By mid-afternoon I was thoroughly on edge, and Jack himself was
discouraged. It was in that mood that he suggested we return Annabelle’s purse. I didn’t want to go there unless Standish accompanied us and Jack agreed with me.

  “God knows,” he said, “we’ve done our share of snooping. Our share and then some! I have my own opinion of Annabelle, but she’s suffering. Suffering like hell. Maybe she’ll talk with Standish present; maybe she won’t. Anyhow it isn’t up to us to trap her.”

  We proceeded to the police station. The anteroom buzzed with action, and for one wild moment I thought that Elliott had been captured. Loud voices came from behind the closed door of Standish’s office. Many unfamiliar men—neighboring police judging from their appearance—bustled in and out. A telephone rang steadily and no one answered it. Jack tried to find out what was going on, but no one seemed to know. Eventually a small boy escorted by his mother emerged from the office. He wore a boy-scout uniform with an eagle badge and he clung tightly to his mother’s hand. There was a mixture of embarrassment and pride on his face.

  When we went in, Standish was alone. He explained the excitement. Elliott was still at large, but the yellow roadster had been located. It had been abandoned in a thickly wooded section some ten miles beyond Crockford.

  “It was well concealed,” said Standish. “Four miles off the road, driven straight across the tree stumps, and a bumpy ride it must have been. Three flat tires and a busted headlight to say nothing of ruined springs. We had a lot of luck in finding it. A boy-scout picnic. Those boy scouts have sharp eyes. I’ve been talking to the kid who spotted it.” He smiled. “To the kid and also to his mother. She was pretty anxious I should commit the township to a medal.”

  “There was no sign of Elliott?”

  “The car was empty.”

  “Could he be hiding in the woods?”

  “Fifty men say he isn’t. They’ve been hunting since nine this morning, and those woods have been covered inch by inch. No. Elliott isn’t there.” Standish made his fingers into a church steeple. “That roadster was conspicuous, and Elliott was smart enough to know it. My hunch is he drove immediately from the Lodge to that isolated spot, got rid of the car and then lit out on foot.”

  “Walking four miles at night through unfamiliar woods to the road?”

  “A man can walk when he has to. But where did he walk? He didn’t walk to the railroad station and buy a ticket; he didn’t walk to the bus station; and he isn’t the type hitchhiker a car owner would be likely to forget. His picture has been in all the papers. He was wearing a light-gray, blood-stained suit. We know that. The steering wheel of the car is bloody. And there is blood upon the seat.”

  “Elliott stayed in Crockford some days,” Jack said at length. “Maybe he made previous arrangements in the event of an—an emergency.”

  “Maybe,” said Standish noncommittally.

  With that he rose and suggested that we descend upon Annabelle. It was a sparkling day. The Sound was a bland deceptive blue, and motes of sunshine twinkled on the water. Summer cottages were opening. We saw workmen hanging awnings and gardeners planting tulip bulbs. Forsythia bushes bravely bloomed.

  We drove along the beach where Jack and I had seen Franklyn Elliott walking. The beach was deserted, but it promised life. You could picture striped umbrellas, and boys and girls in bathing suits, and children digging in the sand. Two enthusiastic youths in a motor boat to wed a life raft from the shore. They shouted advice at each other.

  The Bayne garden looked cheerless and unkempt. Unraked leaves skittered in the sharp breeze, and Silas had never appeared to clip the privet hedges. A policeman lurked at the gates. He was not in uniform. He wore his hat pulled down and his coat collar up, and he was about as inconspicuous as a cigar-store Indian.

  We mounted the steps of the stone house, rang the bell. The same dull-eyed Velva whom I remembered from my previous visit showed us into the spacious living room where Annabelle and I had lunched, discussed Jane Coatesnash and traded questions and evasions. It was as neglected as the gardens. Flowers wilted in the bakelite bowls; newspapers littered the Sheraton table and collapsed upon the floor; dust gathered on the trig little typewriter.

  Velva said her mistress was lying down, and went off to call her. Presently Annabelle came in. She wore a rumpled negligee; she looked white and tired, and I knew from her eyes that she had been crying. She smiled wanly and then saw Standish. The smile faded.

  “Oh! I see! This is an official visit.”

  I said quickly, “We’ve brought your purse. You left it at the house.”

  She thanked me, and drifted to a chair. No one spoke. Standish, who had expected I would lead the interview, sent me a reproachful look. The awkward silence lengthened. Annabelle opened her purse. She looked up.

  “My cigarette case is not here,” she said curtly.

  “Your cigarette case?”

  “A small gold case—initialed. I’m sure I had it in the purse. I always carry it.”

  I daresay I looked confused. “If it isn’t there, then it must be at the house. I will send it down tomorrow.”

  “So you opened the purse!” She glanced scornfully around the circle of faces. “I might have known you wouldn’t pass up such a chance.” Her tone became brittle and defiant. “I would like the case back. It happens to mean a lot to me. Frank gave it to me.”

  Standish leaned forward. “We found his car this morning.”

  Incredibly, hope leaped into her eyes. It died as Standish told the story. She linked her hands about her knees. She said in a small, gray voice, “I had hoped you would find him, too.”

  “Then why don’t you help us?”

  “I assure you I cannot.”

  “You have not been in communication with him since his flight from the Lodge?”

  “I haven’t had a word from him since he left the Lodge,” she replied, emphasizing the word. Her face sketched brief contempt. “As you are well aware. Every piece of mail which enters this house is examined before I see it; my telephone wire is tapped so you can keep up with what I’m ordering for lunch; and as for Frank’s coming here in person—” she gestured toward the lawns “—certainly your myrmidon at the gates would seize and arrest him.”

  Standish persisted. “You do not know his whereabouts?”

  “God knows, I wish I did.”

  “You insist he did not murder Elkins?”

  “I do.”

  “Can you give us any other reason for his disappearance? Do you know of any other reason?”

  “I can guess another reason.” She stood up in a frenzy of nerves, despair and—I thought—incertitude. Her trailing gown swished from one end of the long room to the other. She paused at the window and faced us. One white ringless hand grasped the monkscloth draperies. “I don’t know why I should defend Franklyn Elliott to you, but I will. He came here three weeks ago—not in his own interests—but in the interests of Mrs. Coatesnash, his client and my—my friend. As he saw it, she was in for some pretty important trouble. He hoped to protect her from accusations he imagined might be made—in the investigation of his partner’s murder.”

  “Then he suspected her from the first?”

  “He knew she was not guilty. It was impossible.”

  “Then why did Mrs. Coatesnash kill herself?”

  “I couldn’t say.” The harassed and desperate expression deepened on her face. “I can say this. Frank had a second reason for coming to Crockford. He wanted, indeed he was determined, to discover who had murdered Hiram Darnley. The lead he was following—and I assure you he had a lead—was one which he could not divulge for reasons which I cannot go into now. He suspected Silas. And that is why he went to the Lodge. I was with him at the Tally-ho Inn earlier that very afternoon. Before I left, he told me that he was going to telephone Silas and make an appointment at the Lodge.” She shot a feverish glance at me. “That is the conversation you overheard and misinterpreted so dreadfully. I do not know what happened after Frank reached the Lodge. I can guess. I believe Frank found Silas dead a
nd, from the body, the room, or perhaps from something else, made deductions which he thought would carry him to the person who murdered Darnley and then murdered Silas to cover up the crime.”

  It might have been merely the defense of a loyal, frightened woman. But her air of desperate sincerity moved me. She so obviously believed in Elliott’s innocence that I myself was shaken. What lead could the missing man be following which would necessitate flight, concealment of his information from police officials? Annabelle knew something more. Why wouldn’t she speak it out?

  Standish was provoked and skeptical. “You suggest Elliott is in pursuit of the murderer now?”

  “I do.”

  Standish said ironically, “He has been missing forty-eight hours. How long a time would you say should elapse before he reports progress?”

  She burst into tears. It was amazing coming from her. Also it was pitiful. She turned her back and fought for control. Again she faced us. “You must excuse me. I have been troubled and unstrung.” Her eyes were now quite dry and remarkably steady. “Forty-eight hours isn’t a test. If and when Franklyn Elliott has been missing a week—and there is still no word—I will tell you the little I know. You may then decide what to do. Now, please, will you leave?”

  Under the circumstances there was nothing else to do. The interview had distressed and unsettled me. I had been much more certain in my opinions before I entered the house than when I left it. Standish, too, seemed disturbed.

  “Women,” he growled, “always upset a case. And a woman in love is pure poison. It’s foolish to put any stock in Annabelle Bayne. After all she is engaged to marry Elliott.”

  “Engaged!”

  “She is indeed,” he said soberly. “So her defense of the man means nothing. But damned if I can understand what she’s so close-mouthed about. She has a theory of her own. Why should she stipulate a week before she’s ready to talk?”