Miss Withers Regrets

by Stuart Palmer

  “But even so, could you use it?”

  “Not in court. But we figured we’d have enough of the real facts so we could prove our case, anyway. I even had the chief medical examiner send me out some of the stuff”—here Piper showed her a small blue glass bottle—“but we never got to use it.”

  “Still insisting that Montague is guilty?” she interrupted. “Can’t you ever forget that blessed triangle of yours?”

  He smiled. “There are new angles to the triangle now. And Searles’s death doesn’t make things any simpler, either. On the contrary, as a matter of fact.” They both turned to watch the ambulance as it sped along on its mission to pick up what was left of the unhappy gardener.

  “But if you were so convinced of Montague’s guilt—”

  “Listen a minute,” Piper said. “Look, Hildegarde. We never held Montague for murder, but just for investigation, see? But what do you think Mrs. Helen Cairns up and does yesterday? She telegraphs to Chicago for a hotshot criminal lawyer, meets him at the airport, and rushes him over to the station, stopping to see a judge on the way. So all of a sudden we had this stew-bum of a wild Irishman on our hands—”

  Miss Withers began to smile. “Clarence Darrow, Fallon, or Earl Rogers?”

  “None of them. Some guy named Malone or Mahoney. Before we even knew he was in town he’d got wise to the betapentalin gag, uncovered the sheriff’s private bottle of rye, dated up the D.A.’s big blonde secretary, and slapped a writ of habeas corpus in Vinge’s face.”

  They walked on in silence. “A fast worker,” Miss Withers said.

  “Jim the Penman crossed with Captain Kidd,” remarked the inspector bitterly. “Anyway, he sprung his client about eleven, which gave Montague plenty of time to kill Searles, who was the only real witness against him.”

  “But if Montague went off in the company of his lawyer and Helen Cairns, then he has an alibi—”

  “He didn’t. He went off alone, like a bat out of hell. Last I saw of Mr. Whatshisname, he was sitting in Vinge’s office, figuring up an expense account for Mrs. Cairns and singing some silly song about how he caught himself a midnight train and beat his way to Georgia.”

  “But wasn’t Helen waiting outside for Pat?”

  “In the hall—but he went out the side door, without a word of thanks to the hotshot lawyer or a good-bye to anybody. She hung around a while and then drove off alone, looking mad as a wet hen.”

  “My, my,” said Miss Withers. “It must have been a great disappointment to Helen Cairns. After she’d gone to all that trouble—”

  “For two cents I’d run the stew-bum out of town,” Piper growled. “I’ve got a hunch he isn’t entitled to practice before the New York bar, anyway.”

  “I’m afraid, Oscar, that you have even worse worries than that. Or rather you will have in a minute, when I get up courage enough to make a sort of confession.” By this time they were coming up the clamshell-bordered path towards her door. “Please come inside and I’ll make you some coffee.”

  “Haven’t time, thanks,” Piper said. “Now what’s this about a confession? You’re not going to tell me that you did Searles in, are you?”

  The amusement went out of his face as he saw her expression. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I did just that. You’d better change your mind and come in.”

  The inspector came in and even accepted a cup of warmed-over coffee, but he was too much on edge to drink it. “Go ahead and tell me the worst,” he demanded.

  “I meant it for the best. How was I to know? I mean, I was only trying to help uncover the trail by smoking out something that seemed rotten in Denmark, and—”

  “Will you please stop the sansifrans double talk?”

  She took a deep breath and began again. “Oscar, do you remember your promising to try to find out for me just what it was that a certain committee of local citizens had approached me about when I first came to Shoreham?”

  He nodded impatiently, took a sip of his coffee, and burned his mouth. “Damn and blast! Sorry, go on.”

  “I found out for myself. I also found out, through the help of the Beales’ talkativeness, that the local committee had been trying to go ahead with its own sleuthing. You see, they were trying to find out who had been poisoning dogs hereabouts, and they had come to the conclusion that it was Huntley Cairns because of something they found in his library just before he was murdered. There seemed a very good chance that one of them—or more than one—had immediately taken matters into his own hands and had drowned Cairns in his own pool.”

  “If that’s all you have to say, forget it. People don’t commit murder to avenge the poisoning of a pup.” He started to rise.

  “Wait, Oscar. Not normal people. But just who is normal these days? There’s always an aftermath of hysteria after a major war, and on top of that the atom bombs didn’t just blow up two Japanese cities; they blew the foundations out from under every one of us. Everybody is jittery. And you yourself know that the files are full of cases where murder was committed over a few dollars, or because a neighbor insisted on mowing his lawn too early on a Sunday morning, or because a husband misunderstood his wife’s psychic one-club bid in a hot rubber of bridge.”

  He shrugged. “Go on—get to the point, will you?”

  “I shall. So I decided that while one or two of the people in that group might have murdered Cairns, they couldn’t all be in on it. And the rest must be feeling worried and guilty and ready to crack. I tried to get them all together and then learned that they themselves were having a meeting to discuss the mess they were in. So I walked into the meeting and I dropped what I hoped was a bombshell. I told them I knew all, or nearly all—and that if Cairns had been killed for that reason, then they had got the wrong man, because he hadn’t been the dog poisoner at all. In proving my case I’m afraid I let them think that I had evidence enough to prove that the real dog poisoner was Joe Searles.”

  Piper set the coffee down on a nearby table. “I begin to see.”

  “I hope you do—and that you’ll understand. Anyway, after I’d done that I got to worrying—suppose Searles was really the murderer and had killed his employer to cover up the dog poisoning? I talked myself into believing him guilty, and finally I very rashly went down there hoping to surprise him into a confession, and I found him dead!”

  “And you have a very good idea that somebody in the group, on learning they’d got the wrong man the first time, up and rushed off to get the right one!”

  She nodded. “It seems logical.”

  “So now it’s a question of whether Mrs. Boad, or the Benningtons, or Nicolet, or Doc Radebaugh wears a size-8½-B shoe!” Piper brightened a little at the prospect of something definite to get his teeth into. He even finished his coffee. “You’ve really made a mess of things this time, trying to work alone in the dark—but maybe I can still save something out of it, with that footprint to go on.”

  “Yes, Oscar, but—”

  He paused in the doorway. “Don’t worry about it too much. I’ll see you in the morning. We may even have the case all washed up—”

  “Yes, perhaps. If it only wasn’t for the other clue in Searles’s cottage tonight!”

  “The other—what other?”

  “The whiskey bottle,” she pointed out softly.

  “But there wasn’t any whiskey bottle!”

  “To quote from the esteemed Mr. Holmes, ‘That was the curious incident!’ The man had been drinking—the place smelled of it—but obviously he hadn’t spent the evening in any bar. And why the killer should bother to carry away a whiskey bottle—”

  The inspector thought and then shrugged. “Searles probably threw it out of the window in a drunken moment.”

  She looked dubious. “Perhaps. And perhaps he brought his rotgut liquor home with him in a brown paper bag, but I doubt it. The more I think about this case, Oscar, the more I am convinced that from the beginning we have been looking for the strange and fantastic, when the actual truth is v
ery plain and simple. As plain as—”

  “As the nose on your face?” The inspector beat her to that one and then got out of the door before she could think of a reply.

  “ ‘He laughs best …’ ” murmured the schoolteacher to herself. She took a small blue glass bottle from her handbag and studied it thoughtfully. It had been very easy to abstract it from the inspector’s coat pocket as they walked along. The idea of an otherwise harmless drug which would force a tongue to speak the truth was extremely attractive to her at the moment.

  The question was—how to use it? For truth was, she knew, a double-edged sword.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE SUN ROSE NEXT MORNING above a bank of clouds a little after six, and so, through no fault of her own, did Miss Hildegarde Withers. She was rudely summoned out of a deep though troubled slumber to hear a heavy hammering upon her front door.

  “Just a minute!” she called, arraying herself hastily in a bathrobe. She rushed to the door and then relaxed when she saw that it was only the inspector, looking, she thought, even more gray and worn than was his usual wont. “Why, Oscar, you said you’d drop over in the morning, but this seems just the middle of the night!”

  He stared at her, unsmiling, and she realized that he had something on his mind. “Well, don’t just stand there! Tell me what’s happened, for heaven’s sake. It’s not another murder is it?”

  “No. But you’d better get dressed as quick as you can.”

  She promised that she wouldn’t be a minute, insisted that he come in and sit down, and then disappeared into the bedroom. The inspector came inside, but he did not sit down. He stalked up and down the room, looking at his watch every few minutes.

  Miss Withers appeared, dressed and combed, sooner than he had expected. “There!” she said. “I gather that you aren’t even giving me time for breakfast? Let us go then—and don’t tell me where, since you seem to enjoy being so secretive about it.” She chose a hat which looked rather like a last year’s bird’s nest and planted it firmly upon her head.

  “You’d better pack an overnight bag too,” Piper told her.

  “But, Oscar—”

  He turned wearily towards her. “You may as well know. It’s none of my doing, and I guess I could have handled Vinge, but the district attorney insisted that you be taken into technical custody as a material witness in the death of Joe Searles. Loomis didn’t think much of your little bombshell that you dropped on the group at Benningtons’ last night.”

  Her sniff was like a snort. “I see! So I’m to be locked up, and the murderer goes free—”

  “I doubt it. We’ve ordered everybody down at Vinge’s office at seven o’clock, and when I say everybody I mean everybody. This second killing has blown the lid wide open, and anything goes. So pack your toothbrush—I’ve got a car waiting.”

  She fussed with a small suitcase and then crossed the room to bend over the aquarium. “I’m afraid,” the inspector told her, “that you can’t take those fish along with you.”

  “That wasn’t my idea. But if they’re to be abandoned here indefinitely …” She sniffed, and lifted the top of the tank, sprinkling powdered fish food into the glass triangle which floated on top of the tepid water.

  Instantly the entire happy family of fancy fish swarmed out of the plant forest, plunging enthusiastically into the falling column of manna from heaven. Even the snails, catfish, and dojos hastened towards the rock-bordered depression in the center of the tank’s floor to see what would settle down their way. They ranged themselves at the bottom, goggling upward.

  “Take your time,” Inspector Piper said in a low voice. “I’ve only got two murders to solve today, and I mean today. I’ll be shipped back to Centre Street with my tail between my legs if I don’t have this case signed, sealed, and delivered by then.”

  But Miss Withers was at the moment paying him very little attention. “My female betta is missing,” she cried. “And so is the angelfish Gabriel. Or Gabrielle—nobody would know or care except another angelfish—”

  “I don’t know or care either,” Piper reminded her. “Any time you’re ready—”

  She still knelt by the aquarium, watching the miniature world with keen, worried eyes. “Four of my fish gone in the last forty-eight hours,” Miss Withers murmured. “A neon, a rosy tetra, a betta, and a scalare.” She leaned even closer. Then she lifted the top of the tank, dipped her finger down into the water, and splashed.

  Out from the shadows behind the red rock came a plump greenish-blue fish, wearing at the moment an extremely smug look upon its goggled, batrachian face. The female betta was very pleased with herself. Butter would not, as the old saying goes, melt in her mouth.

  Neither would the long streamer, the antenna, which dangled from her jaws, vestigial remains of the missing angelfish. “Oscar, for heaven’s sake,” gasped the schoolteacher. “It was the betta all the time!”

  He stood by the door, beckoning gently. “Oh, very well, Oscar. Since you have to be so official. It’s a shame, though, that you don’t share my interest in tropical fish. Sometimes we can learn the more interesting and valuable lessons from a close study of wild life. ‘Sermons in stones,’ you know.” She turned out the light and picked up her bag. Then a sudden thought struck her and, murmuring something about her toothbrush, she disappeared into the bathroom.

  Carefully locking the door behind her, she took out a packet of letters—love letters which should never have been written and which even now should not fall into the hands of the police or the district attorney. Swiftly she crumpled them, envelopes and all, into the bowl and touched a match to the lot. As they flared up she turned to open the window, not wanting the inspector in the other room to catch the sour, acrid scent of burning paper.

  She turned back to the conflagration, stirring the burning letters with her finger so that nothing would be left but ashes. Then the schoolteacher caught her breath, for between the heavily written lines of Pat Montague’s letters there had begun to appear faint gray writing—writing in another hand, a dainty, feminine hand. She caught the phrase “happy and sad at the same time” and again: “Oh, how could you say that …” and “… if you’ll only wait and be patient…”

  Tardily she splashed water from the faucet on the sodden mass, but it was no use. Miss Withers stood there, deep in thought, until she heard the inspector’s impatient voice from the front room. Then she disposed of the ashes, washed her hands, and hurried out.

  Meekly she followed the inspector out to the police car which waited at the hotel entrance and climbed into the rear seat. She did not have to be told how wide was the rift between them and how far she had fallen from Oscar Piper’s good graces when she saw him close the door behind her and climb in front beside the driver.

  “At any rate,” she began pleasantly, “it appears that today will see the end of all this.”

  “It’ll see the end of it for you,” the inspector told her, and the roar of the motor as they jerked away from the curb put an end to further conversation.

  In spite of all her delaying, they arrived at the Shoreham police station well ahead of time. None of the suspects had as yet arrived, and the inspector took her into the sheriff’s vacant office and told her to wait.

  “You stay here, and don’t make a try to get away,” he said.

  “Never fear,” Miss Withers told him. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” Then she caught his arm. “Oscar, for old time’s sake, do me just one favor. I believe you said that all the suspects are to be here at seven?”

  He nodded.

  “Are they to be escorted down in police cars, as I was?”

  “As it happens, no. They’re all driving their own cars down so they can go right home afterwards, if and when they’re cleared.”

  She told him what she wanted. “It would only take your men a minute—”

  “This was no ordinary hit-run case,” he pointed out.

  “I know,” she said. “But please have someone
check their cars, anyway, very carefully. Especially the windshields!” He was obviously about to say “No” to her plan, so she added quickly: “If you’ll agree to that, I’ll tell you where to find Pat Montague.”

  That got him. “What? Where?”

  “Relax, Oscar, I didn’t hide him anywhere. But just think where you’d go if you just got out of jail, a dirty, smelly jail like this one, no doubt bug-infested and everything. You’d look for a bath, wouldn’t you? Well, I happen to remember that there’s a Turkish bath only halfway down the block, and I believe that customers in such places are allowed to have a bed for the night.”

  For the first time that morning the inspector’s face relaxed its grimness a little. “It’s a deal,” he told her, and went out.

  Miss Withers was displeased but not surprised to hear the click of a key in the door. She sat down at the sheriff’s desk, took out a pocket mirror from her handbag, and readjusted her hair and hat. Then she sat back patiently to wait. It was a wait of only a moment or two, for the telephone began to ring. Without hesitation she answered it.

  “Is Vinge there? Dr. Farney speaking.”

  The schoolteacher buttoned down her conscience and answered with a businesslike voice, “He’s tied up right now Doctor, but—”

  “I was just going to tell him that I’d finished the post-mortem. But I’ll bring my report over.”

  “The sheriff says that he’d like you to give me the details,” she said hastily.

  There was no sound at all at the other end of the line for as long as a count of ten in the prize-ring. Then Dr. Farney laughed. “That’s funny,” he chortled. “Because the sheriff just walked in here.”

  Miss Withers hung up just in time. For the door was being unlocked again. The inspector came in, looking glum. “Well, Oscar?”

  “I looked at the suspects’ cars,” he said. “Especially the windshields. Why, will you tell me?”

  “It’s very simple,” she said. “I’ve been riding around in taxicabs on these country roads in the evening enough to notice that at speeds of sixty and over the windshields become covered with dead bugs. At slower speeds the bugs slide up over the top. The murderer of Joe Searles must have been nervous and in a hurry, at least after the deed was done. So if you’ll tell me whose windshield was a bug graveyard, I’ll tell you—”