But He Was Already Dead When I Got There

by Barbara Paul

  A change came over her that was obvious to both policemen. She tensed up, clasping her hands so tightly around the cat in her lap that he wriggled free and jumped to the floor in annoyance. My, my, Toomey thought, is the lady on the verge of telling an untruth? Gretchen’s voice was a full octave higher when she spoke. “No, I never use the elevator. I don’t know how it got up there.”

  “Perhaps one of the guests last night took it up?”

  “Perhaps … I don’t know … yes, that must be what happened.”

  “Why was everyone here last night, Mrs. Knox? It couldn’t have been a social evening. Mrs. Polk evidently served only one round of drinks and then went to her room. What was going on?”

  Gretchen hesitated. “It was a business meeting. It didn’t last very long.”

  “How long?”

  “Less than an hour, I’d say.”

  “What kind of business did you talk about?”

  “My husband’s jewelry business. His and Dorrie Murdoch’s—they’re partners. Ellandy Jewels.”

  “Spell it?” Rizzuto asked, pencil poised.

  She spelled it. “For Lionel and Dorrie, ell and dee.”

  Rizzuto grimaced. “Okay—you and your husband Lionel. Dorrie Murdoch and her husband Simon. Who are these other two people—Nicole Lattimer and Malcolm Conner?”

  “Nicole is a designer at Ellandy’s—they may make her a partner, if she gets her way. She usually does,” Gretchen explained a touch waspishly. “Malcolm Conner is Ellandy’s attorney. He’s also Dorrie’s brother.”

  Toomey asked, “What did your uncle have to do with Ellandy Jewels?”

  “He lent them money.”

  It was like squeezing water from a stone. “What about this loan, Mrs. Knox? What needed discussing?”

  Again that vague gesture with the hands. “I don’t know whether I should talk about business matters—”

  Just then a door slammed and a voice called out, “Gretchen! Gretchen—where are you?”

  She rose quickly to her feet. “In the library!” she called back.

  Lionel Knox appeared in the doorway—a large man, harried-looking, walking with a limp. Lionel took a tentative step toward his wife, and then she resolved his doubts by running into his arms. Gretchen buried her head in Lionel’s shoulder and let loose a flood of tears she hadn’t even known needed shedding.

  But Lieutenant Toomey wasn’t watching the touching reunion. His full attention was on Godfrey Daniel—who was standing with his back arched, hair on end, hissing and spitting like a jungle tiger ready to fight to the death.

  6

  “It’s a hell of a thing to happen,” Lionel Knox was telling Lieutenant Toomey earnestly. He and Gretchen were seated together on the sofa, the very picture of a happily reconciled couple. “When Gretchen called and told me, I had trouble believing it. Was it a burglar who killed him?”

  “Possibly,” Toomey said. “There are a few questions that still need answering before we’ll know. Mrs. Knox, I know seeing your uncle like that this morning must have been distressing, but did you notice anything missing from this room?”

  “I didn’t see my uncle this morning,” Gretchen said. “Polka Dot wouldn’t let me come in.”

  “Polka Dot?” Rizzuto asked.

  “Mrs. Polk, the housekeeper. Her first name’s Dorothy. She told me I didn’t want to see—and I wasn’t much inclined to argue with her.”

  “Yeah, she likes to take care of things her own way,” Lionel said. “She’s already been hard at work even today.”

  “What’s that?” Toomey asked.

  “Oh, I just meant she’s already cleaned this room—in spite of what’s happened.”

  “Mrs. Polk hasn’t cleaned in here yet. What made you think she had?”

  Lionel had the look of a man who’s just realized he’s made a mistake, while Gretchen started nervously twisting her fingers and trying not to look at her husband. Lionel looked desperately around the room for a liferaft; Here comes a whopper, Toomey thought. “The glasses,” Lionel said in a rush. “We all had drinks last night and now the glasses are gone. I thought Mrs. Polk had cleared them away.”

  “The men from the crime lab took them,” Rizzuto said.

  Toomey looked daggers at his subordinate; Rizzuto had said nothing about glasses. Just then Godfrey Daniel jumped up in Toomey’s lap, still bristling at Lionel. “This cat doesn’t seem to like you, Mr. Knox,” the Lieutenant said.

  Gretchen waved a hand dismissively. “Godfrey will spit at you one minute and then come beg to be petted the next. You never know what mood he’s going to be in.”

  Toomey placed a calming hand on the cat’s back and said, “Mr. Knox, now that you’re here, suppose you tell me about this loan for Ellandy’s you were all meeting about last night.”

  Lionel took his time answering. “Uncle Vincent had already made us the loan,” he said slowly. “We were asking him for an extension, for more time to repay.”

  “Did he agree?”

  Lionel licked his lips and shifted his weight edgily. Instead of answering, he glanced at his wife.

  “He didn’t decide,” she said suddenly.

  “That’s right,” Lionel said with relief. “He just put us off.”

  “Mm. What time did the meeting break up?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—around nine, I think,” Lionel said. Gretchen nodded.

  “Was the fire burning when you left?”

  They both stared at him blankly. “It was burning when we got here,” Lionel said. “I remember Uncle Vincent told me to move, I was blocking the fire. I guess it was still burning when we left.”

  “I don’t remember,” Gretchen said. “Is it important?”

  “If the room was overheated,” Toomey explained, “the onset of rigor mortis would have been delayed. I’m sorry to have to say this,” he added quickly, noting Gretchen’s look of distress, “but it’s necessary. Since your uncle’s desk is so close to the fireplace, the heat would have made a difference.”

  They both looked confused. “What does the desk have to do with it?” Lionel asked.

  Toomey reminded himself that neither one of them had seen the corpse. “That’s where he died. At the desk.”

  “At the desk?” both Knoxes said, astonished.

  “At the desk,” Toomey repeated, astonished at their astonishment. “The body was found slumped forward on the desk top. Why? Did you expect it to be found somewhere else?”

  Gretchen shook her head vigorously while Lionel hemmed and hawed, “Uh, no, Lieutenant, not at all.”

  “Where did you expect the body to be?” Toomey persisted.

  “Nowhere in particular,” Gretchen said in a high voice.

  “It was just a surprise,” Lionel said, “finding out where. I hadn’t had time to think about that part of it, I guess. It’s hard to imagine Uncle Vincent just sitting there quietly at his desk and letting himself be killed.”

  “Yes, that’s it!” Gretchen said eagerly.

  Toomey and Rizzuto exchanged a look. “You think he would have fought back?” Toomey asked the Knoxes. “A man in a wheelchair?”

  “He would have done something,” Gretchen said, her voice gradually coming back down to normal.

  “He did do something,” Toomey said. “He pulled a gun on whoever was threatening him. He just wasn’t fast enough.”

  “Oh, poor Uncle Vincent!” Gretchen wailed.

  At that moment Mrs. Polk appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me for interrupting, Lieutenant, but I can’t find the missing things anywhere. The things that are in here belong in other places.”

  “Just leave them where they are for the time being, Mrs. Polk,” Toomey said, “and thank you.”

  The housekeeper gestured toward the double doors leading to the terrace. “Are you finished examining that broken glass, Lieutenant? Would it be all right if I called a glazier to come replace it?”

  Toomey, who hadn’t examined the broken glass at all, told her it w
ould be all right. Mrs. Polk gave Gretchen an encouraging smile while ignoring Lionel altogether and left.

  “What missing things?” Lionel asked.

  “A few objets d’art that should be in this room but aren’t. A jade horse, for one thing.”

  “Then it was a burglar!”

  Toomey made a noncommittal noise and pulled out his can of Redi-Whip. “Ever see this before?”

  Gretchen blinked. “I’ve seen Redi-Whip before, yes.”

  “Anything special about that can?” Lionel asked.

  “We found it out on the terrace—right outside the doors.”

  “Funny place to keep whipped cream,” Lionel shrugged. Neither of them seemed particularly interested.

  Toomey tried a different tack. “Mr. Knox, did anybody use the elevator while you were here last night?”

  “Uncle Vincent’s elevator?” Lionel laughed. “Not on your life! Not if he wanted to live to talk about it. Nobody used Uncle Vincent’s elevator but Uncle Vincent.”

  Toomey noticed that Gretchen was doing her nervous hand-twisting routine again. “Perhaps someone used it without his knowing it? Can you hear the elevator from in here?”

  “Yes, you can,” said Lionel, “and nobody used it. No one left the room, for one thing. Oh, Mrs. Polk was in and out a couple of times serving drinks, but the rest of us stayed in here the whole time. Lieutenant, do you suppose we could continue this later? I’ve got to get in to Ellandy’s—my partner doesn’t know about Uncle Vincent, and we’re going to have to find out where we stand legally—on the loan, I mean.”

  Toomey said that would be all right. “I’d like to drop in at Ellandy’s myself—I’ll need to talk to Dorrie Murdoch and Nicole Lattimer. Do you plan on going straight there?”

  “I’m going to drive Gretchen home first.” In response to a question from Rizzuto, Lionel supplied Ellandy’s address as well as his and Gretchen’s home address and phone number. “I’ll be at Ellandy’s in forty-five minutes or an hour, Lieutenant.”

  “Somebody will be around later to fingerprint you,” Toomey told the Knoxes. “We need to eliminate all of you we know were here last night, to see if any unaccounted-for prints remain.”

  Gretchen went out to tell Mrs. Polk they were leaving; Godfrey Daniel abandoned Lieutenant Toomey’s lap and followed her out. Toomey stopped Lionel at the door. “I notice you’re favoring your left leg. Have an accident?”

  “Oh, I turned my ankle yesterday. A nuisance.”

  “Mr. Knox—what did you and your wife argue about last night?”

  “That’s between my wife and me, Lieutenant,” Lionel grinned. “Besides, it’s patched up now.” He limped on out.

  Rizzuto sniggered. “Playin’ around.”

  Toomey rounded on his sergeant and chewed him out soundly for not informing him about the drinking glasses that had still been in the library when the police first arrived. Rizzuto replied sullenly that they’d show up in the crime lab photos and what was all the fuss about—after which Toomey bawled him out again, this time for his attitude.

  Then, as much to keep Rizzuto from sulking as for any other reason, Toomey asked him what he made of the Knoxes.

  Rizzuto perked up. “She’s lyin’ about that elevator, for one thing. For another, she don’t like Nicole Lattimer at all.”

  Toomey grunted in approval, pleased that Rizzuto had picked up on both. “Remind me to check with the others about whether anyone left the room during the meeting. I’m inclined to believe the husband—no one used the elevator last night. And if neither of the servants used it, that means Gretchen Knox did—later, after everyone had gone. The only reason she would have used it is that she knew her uncle would not be using it.”

  Rizzuto asked the obvious. “Think she did it?”

  “I think she knows more than she’s telling. She was obviously surprised to hear the body had been found at the desk instead of somewhere else—they both were.”

  “Yeah, and another thing,” Rizzuto said, “there’s somethin’ fishy about that loan.”

  “You can make book on it. Let’s see what the other partner has to say. You know, Lionel Knox was expecting to find something in here that’s not here now—remember all that talk about Mrs. Polk’s having already cleaned up? He just pretended he was talking about the glasses—a fast-thinking cover-up, but not very convincing. I wonder what he thought he’d find? Those two are lying in their teeth.”

  “Protectin’ each other?”

  “Possibly. There’s one other little thing that’s been bothering me. How did Mrs. Polk know Gretchen Knox was staying the night here?”

  “Huh?”

  “Mrs. Polk said she went up to her room on the third floor well before nine o’clock. Gretchen Knox couldn’t have gone to her room on the second floor until nine at the earliest, the time the meeting broke up. Yet Mrs. Polk said that this morning she called the police and then went to wake the other two.”

  Rizzuto’s eyes gleamed. “Yeah—how’d she know there was two other people in the house? Acourse, the niece coulda gone up to the third floor and told Mrs. Polk she was stayin’. She coulda did that.”

  It was the coulda did that did it. “Rizzuto,” Toomey said in annoyance, “where did you ever get the idea that talking like a grade-school dropout made you sound tough? Look, go out to the kitchen and ask Mrs. Polk about Gretchen. Don’t tell her why you want to know. Just ask her if she spoke to her Miss Gretchen anytime after the meeting last night. And you might as well send in the manservant.”

  Rizzuto nodded and left the library. A minute later, Bjarne walked in. “You wanted to see me?”

  “You’re Barney Peterson?”

  “I am,” said Bjarne Pedersen, thinking that this overweight, droopy-eyed policeman bore a startling resemblance to Peter Lorre in his later, more corpulent years.

  Lieutenant Toomey introduced himself and told the other man to sit down. Toomey got the preliminaries out of the way—how long Bjarne had been working for Vincent Farwell, what his duties were, and so forth. “I understand you were sailing three sheets to the wind last night,” Toomey said.

  Bjarne’s face took on a pinched look. “I was very stupid last night. I didn’t drink that much—it was the pills what did me in.”

  “What pills?”

  “Valium. I took only two. Whenever a lot of people came here, Mr. Vincent would always be, well, difficult afterwards. I thought he’d be easier to handle if I was relaxed.”

  “You took two, you say. What dosage?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever those are, in Mr. Vincent’s bottle.”

  Toomey stared at him. “You’re right. You were stupid. Mixing alcohol and Valium—and you don’t even know the dosage?”

  Bjarne rubbed both eyes with his fingertips. “I’m still groggy.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Toomey grunted. “I don’t suppose you know what time it was when you passed out?”

  “It was after all the guests got here but before anybody left. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Between eight and nine, then. Did you manage to lock up and turn on the alarm first?”

  Bjarne shook his head, and then winced. “I was waiting for everyone to leave. There’d be no point—” Then it hit him. “Oh god. Oh my god. Because I didn’t lock up, that burglar—oh, good god!”

  “Hey, are you all right?” Toomey asked. The manservant looked as if he was going to throw up.

  Bjarne let out a cry that brought both Rizzuto and Mrs. Polk running. “It’s my fault!” Bjarne moaned. “Because I got drunk last night, Mr. Vincent is dead! He’s dead because of me! Because of me!” The realization that he himself had made possible what he feared the most thoroughly devastated Bjarne. He slid off his chair on to his knees and buried his face in his hands. His whole body shook with sobs.

  Mrs. Polk took charge while the two policemen looked on helplessly. “Now, Barney—that’s no way to carry on.” She urged him to his feet. “You come with me. Go wash your
face and I’ll fix you a pot of tea. Come along, now.” Crushed, Bjarne let her lead him away.

  “Whew!” Rizzuto said when they were gone. “Ain’t that carrying responsibility a little far?”

  Toomey grunted. “Well, he was responsible. It’ll be interesting to see whether he starts making excuses once he’s recovered from his attack of mea culpa. What about Mrs. Polk? Did Gretchen Knox tell her last night she was staying over?”

  “She says she and ‘Miss Gretchen’ dint speak again after she served the drinks. You know, Lieutenant, she coulda just heard her movin’ around.”

  Toomey put on an expression of mock surprise. “But she can’t hear anything from her room, remember? Mrs. Polk isn’t being straight with us. None of them is, except Barney Peterson, and he went to pieces on me. And we still have half the people who were here last night to talk to!”

  “They won’t know nothin’ about the burglary,” Rizzuto stated flatly. “And somebody did break in here last night, no matter how many lies the Knoxes tell.”

  “That’s true—they did. And a most unusual pair of burglars we have here, wouldn’t you say? Look at what the physical evidence tells us happened. The first burglar boosts the second up over the terrace wall, and Burglar Number Two fixes a rope for Burglar Number One to climb. They creep around the house until they come to the double doors leading to the library. They look into a lighted room and there is Vincent Farwell himself in full sight—”

  “How d’you know the lights was on?” Rizzuto asked.

  “Farwell wouldn’t be sitting at his desk in the dark, now, would he? So the lights are on. Ignoring the fact that they themselves are fully visible to the room’s occupant, the burglars forcibly break through the terrace doors—doors that are not even locked, incidentally. Vincent Farwell responds to this unseemly intrusion by drawing a gun and shooting his desk. No one hears the shot, because Mrs. Polk is too far away, Gretchen Knox is wearing earplugs, and Barney Peterson is zonked out on pills and alcohol.”

  “Then they kill ’im.”

  “Then one of the burglars picks up the alabaster statuette and bashes Farwell with it, breaking both the statuette and Farwell’s head in the process. One of them lifts the body a bit while the other pulls out the blotter and takes it to the fireplace and burns it. Then one burglar removes one page of a letter from the file cabinet and puts it under the sofa for the cat to play with. The other burglar finds the Infralux in the desk, decides he doesn’t like the color, and tosses it over into the corner.”