“Nevin.”
“Silly Billy! You might have gotten some information if you had asked me that question a different way.”
“Don’t rub it in, honey. What do you mean?”
“I mean that I know a little bit about who might have gone up on the Pine Hill yesterday. I was out in the backyard at the time. I saw her.”
“Who?”
“Olympe Deming.”
I kicked myself in the pants mentally. “You’re sure she went up to that precipice?”
“Almost positive. She started up toward the grove trail. The grove trail’s the easier ascent to that precipice up on Pine Hill—it’s more or less a beginner’s trail. It parallels the Pine Hill Trail, then joins it on the last summit.”
“You didn’t see Nevin?”
She shook her head. “No. But I’m sure I saw Olympe unless somebody was wearing her ski togs.”
I bounced to my feet. Eileen saw me to the door.
“MacAndrew feels better,” I said. “You aren’t mad at me?”
She squeezed my hand. “Off the record, no.”
“I can return for a few dozen encores of java?”
“MacAndrew is always welcome,” she smiled, “so long as he brings Hank with him.”
I made a quick grab for Eileen, and before she knew it I had kissed her smack on the mouth, long and hard.
She didn’t mind. So I kissed her again.
Then I walked back to the house, whistling through my teeth.
I found Homer down at the end of the table, on the terrace. He was sitting with an electric percolator, a half filled cup of coffee, and Olympe Deming.
“MacAndrew is back,” I said. “Mind if I look over your shoulder while you work?”
Homer waved me to a chair. Olympe rose nervously and turned to leave.
“Please don’t go, Olympe.” Homer was on his feet. “I’ll have Hank leave if it’ll make you feel any better.”
“I’ll go quickly, officer,” I said. “What is there about me that frightens girls?”
Olympe smiled weakly and paused at the door.
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Bull. Perhaps later—I’ll talk to you later.”
She gave me a friendly grin. “And you don’t frighten me a bit.”
I bowed. “MacAndrew is overjoyed.”
Homer flipped the pages of his little black book.
“A fascinating girl, Olympe.”
“What’s eating her, Homer?”
“The jitters. The ladies all come to Father Bull, sonny. I ease their troubled souls; I comfort them in their hour of travail.”
I filled Olympe’s empty cup.
“Meaning which?”
“The little lady is frightened, Hank.”
“What’s bothering her?”
“I don’t know. The little lady has changed, somehow—you’ve probably noticed. When a gal like Olympe suddenly changes character, remakes her personality, something’s hit her—and hard!”
“I noticed that, Homer. She hit me the same way at the breakfast table, but I thought it had something to do with the bit of dialogue I overheard this morning.” I read my notes back to Bull. “Does it fit?” I asked.
“Can’t tell yet. But it might—it might, at that. I’m sorry I didn’t hear about this sooner. I might have asked her a few questions about Nevin when I had her in the mood.” He added my straws to his little black book. “How did it strike you, Hank? Give you any ideas?”
I said: “Love. Is that possible?”
“Why not? But what made you think it was love?”
“The way Nevin spoke to her, mostly.”
“How do you know? Did you see him?”
“I told you I didn’t see him or Olympe. I got all this through the screen. It was like closing your eyes at a movie.”
“Could be. He might have fallen for her.”
I made a face, a puzzled face. “You really think that Nevin would go for a doll like her?”
“What makes you think Nevin doesn’t like sweaters as much as you do?”
“I never said that she wasn’t attractive,” I protested. “But I wouldn’t trust her as far as she can throw her chest.”
Homer beamed into my eyes. “You’re prejudiced, sonny.”
I blushed. “Probably. Anyhow, I’ll answer your question—I never did believe in women’s intuition. Coming from Olympe Deming, I believe in it less.”
“She baffles me, Hank. I have an idea she’s hiding something. It happened this way: I remained with my coffee after the others left the table. There were many interesting entries for my little black book. In the first place, nobody mentioned Nicky English until the little breakfast party almost broke up. Then Gavano made some crack about ‘the keyhole Kid’. He wanted to know where Nicky was. Nobody paid much attention to his question—they were on their way out of the room at the time. Then Gavano and I were alone. Mike said: ‘Nicky didn’t take it on the lam last night, did he?’ I told him that Nicky would surely be down later—that I had seen him in the hall this morning. Gavano left.
“Then Olympe came back, pretending that she had left her lipstick. She seemed very much upset about something. We had a chit-chat, and I could see that she was play-acting at being casual. Then she sprang the intuition gag on me. I told her that I believed in the guff thoroughly. She used it as a preface to a question. Olympe softened, changed completely. I have an idea that she’s not as bad a dame as you think Hank. Anyhow, she went on to tell me that the affair between Nicky and Cunningham last night had kept her awake all night long. She was worried—you’ll die laughing at this—about Nicky English!
“She explained it simply. You see, after the scuffle on the stairs with Cunningham, Olympe couldn’t sleep. She went to her room and read, far into the morning. Then the old intuition began to work overtime. She commenced to worry about Nicky. She decided that she would check up on the lad to see that he was all right. She came down the hall, she tells me, and when she turned the corner from her room, she saw a man leaving Nicky’s room.”
“Of course she did! That was Jesse Swink’s back she saw. She must have been the person I spotted through Jesse’s legs, when we were carrying Nicky out.”
“She was, indeed. She was also the person we heard when we were standing in the hall. She admits it.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I explained that the man she saw leaving Nicky’s room was yours truly. Told her I had gone into Nicky’s for the same reason—to check up—found him okay, and left him after a few moments.”
“Did she believe you?”
“I don’t think so,” he sighed. “And I wish that I could believe her.”
CHAPTER 20
Homer Diagnoses
Homer sat on the floor in the center of the studio, peering unseeingly up at the rafters. The cigar rolled along his lower lip in a slow motion seesaw.
“How about the Shtunk’s wire?” I asked. “Aren’t you interested?” Western Union had phoned almost an hour ago, from Woodstock. They had a telegram—a long telegram from New York. But Homer didn’t even have the girl read it over the phone. “You told the girl you’d be down for it soon.”
“It can wait,” he murmured, without turning his head. “Funny about this room, Hank. You know, I met Shipley only once or twice. Never really knew him at all. But this room, overstuffed as it is with bad furniture, is trying awfully hard to speak to me, to tell me just a little bit more about Shipley. I’ve had that feeling ever since the moment we walked in with Swink.”
“This studio has told us a lot,” he went on. “We know, for instance, that Shipley enjoyed light. He cut away three walls, instead of the usual North window. Yet, paradoxically, he enjoyed the darkness, too. Why else would he have only one lamp in the room—one reading lamp? You’re an artist—how many
lamps do you have in your room?”
“Three. And an extra lamp for my drawing table.”
“Yet Shipley had one. Then there’s the big desk. Probably some high pressure interior decorator sold him that item as Napoleon’s office furniture. At heart, Shipley didn’t care much for all this fluff. Else why should he fill that monstrous desk with bills and art supplies and all the unimportant junk a man collects around a studio? No, I have an idea that Shipley was quite normal, at heart.”
For a long time he leaned on his fat hands and I watched the smoke curl up in lazy lines from his inactive cigar. When he finally wriggled to his feet, a change had come over him. His eyes came alive with a sudden urgency.
“Get the car, Hank—we’re off to Woodstock.” He snubbed his cigar end to a violent death. “But first, a few minutes with Nat Tucker.”
We met Nat on his front porch.
“Which way to Doctor Butler’s, Nat?” Homer asked.
“He’s down past the first tea room, on the right side of the road, Mr. Bull. You feelin’ sick?”
“Never felt better in my life, Nat. It’s MacAndrew. He’s got a dark green taste in his mouth. You going to be around here for a while? Want to do me a favor?”
Nat nodded.
“Keep your eye on the house, Nat. I’m anxious to know whether any of the guests leave during the day.”
Tucker squinted toward the main house. “I can only cover the front door from here, of course. You want me to watch the road out past the barn, too?”
“If you can. I’ll be back soon. Be too much trouble for you to sort of walk around the place every now and then?”
“Not at all, not at all.” He sniffed the air. “Unless it snows.”
In the Western Union office, the buck-toothed operator grinned at Homer.
I read the message over Homer’s shoulder:
DON’T GET SORE READ THIS FIRST YOU’LL SEE WHY STOP SEEN BLACKWELL LAST NIGHT NICE GUY STOP KNEW NICKY WELL SAYS NICKY MARIE PARRISH STUFF MCCOY STOP ALSO NICKY INTENDED MARRY THE DAME STOP CHAUFFEUR PICKED MARIE UP THAT NIGHT DIDN’T KNOW WHOSE STOP ALSO COULDN’T SWIM STOP WILKINSON SAYS CASE WHITEWASHED BY TRUM STOP COMMISSIONER AT TIME PAL OF TRUM STOP KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT NICKY ENGLISH OR OTHERS BUT HAS STUFF ON LESTER MINTON EX CON FRIEND MIKE GAVANO ALSO STOP LESTER OKAY SINCE FOUR YEARS AGO AFTER LEFT PINDO STOP CUNNINGHANK OKAY FOUND NOTHING STOP TRACED OLYMPE DEMING AT POWERS AGENCY FOUND GIRLS WHO KNEW HER STOP THEY SAY SHE WENT WITH GUY FOR QUITE AWHILE STOP THEY DIDN’T KNOW NAME OF GUY BUT SAY HES YOUNG GOOD LOOKER STOP HOME ADDRESS AT POWERS CHECKED FOUND PARENTS SPOKE TO THEM ON PHONE THEY HAVEN’T SEEN HER LONG TIME THOUGHT SHE WAS MARRIED STOP SPOKE GIRL SAYS OLYMPE BOYFRIEND NAME NEVIN STOP ANOTHER GIRL SAYS SHE THOUGHT GINK NAME IS CUNNINGHANK ON ACCOUNT OVERHEARD PHONE CALL ONCE STOP CHECKED GAVANO ALSO STOP WAS RIGHT ABOUT PLACE IN MALVERNE ALSO ABOUT TINA ON ACCOUNT CHECKED WITH BADER HE KNOWS EVERYTHING STOP GOT IN NEVIN PLACE JOINT FULL BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS ALSO FEW SHIPLEY PAINTINGS STOP NOW AT SCARSDALE LAST STOP
SHTUNK
Homer shook his head and wrote:
BREAK IN WIRE RESULTS IMMEDIATELY
BULL
“If there’s an answer, bring it up to Tucker’s, sonny,” he said. “And now, on to the good doctor Butler.”
The good doctor Butler lived in a big house adjoining the Russian Samovar, and the good doctor was at home. He greeted us briskly.
“What happened to the man in the bandages? I thought surely he’d be well enough to get down here today. Anything wrong?”
“Everything. The doctor bandaged, the operation was a huge success, but the patient died.”
Butler was aghast. “Incredible! I thought he was all right last night—at least, that is—when did he die?”
“This morning. He was a suicide!”
“No! But that seems preposterous.”
Homer passed him a cigar. “That’s just why I came down to see you, doctor. I was wondering whether that sedative could have induced a state of melancholia.”
“Melancholia?” The doctor laughed grimly. “Unheard of. That was a simple sleeping powder.”
“How long before he’d wake again?”
“Not before morning, unless he were in severe pain,” Doctor Butler frowned. “But even if that fellow were up, I find it hard to believe he’d kill himself.”
Homer made a check mark in his book.
“Did you ever have occasion to treat Shipley, Doctor Butler?”
“Once—but only in a—ah—minor way.”
“Then you never examined him?”
“Well, not exactly. He called me up to his place after a—ah—drinking bout. His stomach, you know.”
“How long ago was that?”
Doctor Butler scratched his nose. “I can check on the date easily enough.” He turned in his chair and drew a white card from his filing cabinet. “It was in the fall of ’39—three years ago.”
“And you haven’t a record of any examination?”
The doctor colored. “What are you getting at? I see no reason for exposing Shipley’s record. It’s unethical.”
“I’m sorry,” said Homer, smiling. “I didn’t want to violate your professional practices, Doctor Butler. I should have told you I knew.”
“Knew?” he frowned. “Knew what?”
“That Shipley had an incurable disease!”
The grey eyebrows rose. “But how? Don’t tell me you detectives have become amateur diagnosticians?”
Homer beamed. “Not at all. I had access to Doctor Torrance’s file.”
“You had—access?”
“Doctor Torrance is away in Florida, you see. I knew that he had been visited by Shipley not so long ago—a stub in Shipley’s checkbook told me so I wanted to know why Shipley went to him.”
“Yes,” sighed the doctor. “Shipley had an incurable disease. But what can that mean to you?”
“It might mean a great deal.”
“Are you trying to discover, then, the reason for Shipley’s suicide?”
“His condition was hopeless, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t have his full record. But from what I saw—” Butler shrugged.
“Did he seem to you the type of man who would kill himself for that reason?”
“I can’t answer that, Bull. I didn’t know him well enough. I saw him from time to time, in the village. I don’t remember that it ever affected his usual good spirits. He always seemed—well, normal. I should think a man like Shipley, an artist, might lose himself in his work and carry on. Shipley loved life.”
“Then you agree with me, Doctor Butler. You don’t think the disease caused the suicide?”
“Hold on! I didn’t say that.”
“I think,” said Homer, “that Shipley would have waited for that natural death.”
Doctor Butler eyed him quizzically. “You mean you doubt that he committed suicide?”
“I know it. Shipley was murdered!”
“Eh?” The doctor was amazed. “Are you sure? How can that be possible? You think that one of his guests—”
“I’m sure of it. And it’s almost my fault that another guest was murdered last night. I should have studied Doctor Torrance’s card then, you see. Perhaps I would have called to ask you a few questions, Doctor.”
“I don’t understand. You found something important on the card?”
Homer nodded. “Only a word. But I didn’t look for it in the dictionary until this morning.”
There was a long silence.
“A word?” asked Butler. “What was that?”
“Amblyopia.”
“Eh? Really? Torrance found that?”
“Four years ago.”
The telephone dinged.
Homer rose abruptly and said goodbye. “I may have some interesting news for you later, Do
ctor. Thanks for your help.”
In the car, Homer was still.
“Amblyopia?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Dimness of vision.” He shot into gear. “A one-word description of Homer Bull. But now it’s my turn!”
“Your turn? I wish I could follow you. This thing gets more involved—”
“It’s clearing Hank. The whole stinking mess is ready for the funny sheets. All I need now is a climax.”
“Climax?” I gulped. “Don’t tell me it’s all over but the handcuffs?”
Homer bent over the wheel grimly. “I won’t tell you anything but this, sonny—we’ve got to move fast!”
“Must we move faster than fifty in this weather?” I gurgled. “You’ll wind up smeared against an oak. What’s the hurry?”
“There may be another murder!” he whispered.
Homer chewed viciously on his half-inch butt and stared ahead into the greying snow. I knew now that the solution lay unraveled before him. He had put the last piece into its proper place.
CHAPTER 21
Homer Smells Homicide
I skipped up the steps of the Tucker porch right behind Homer. Nat was in.
“Has Swink been up here?” Homer snapped. “No? Get him on the phone, Hank. Tell him to come up pronto and to bring Bruck—and a deputy, if he can get one! Anybody leave the house, Nat?”
“Not until ten-thirty, Mr. Bull. I just couldn’t stay out after that. The snow—”
“You’ve been in since ten-thirty?”
“I been sittin’ near the window. Nobody could have got past here—”
“Nonsense!” Homer plopped his hat on askew. “Somebody might have left the other way—past the barn.”
I said: “Swink’ll be up right away.”
“Call the house. I want to speak to Olympe Deming!”
Lester answered. Olympe wasn’t around, he told me.
“Run up to her room, Lester! If she isn’t there, let me know on the upstairs phone.” There was a silence. Then: “She’s not there either? All right.”
“Did you watch the rear of the house, Nat?”
“Walked ’round there at least four times.”
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