The End of Mr. Garment

by Vincent Starrett

Ghost dropped the picture into his side pocket. “Not a word!” he warned in a low voice. “Whatever happens!”

  The detective and the Kimbark butler stomped into the room, and the butler instantly bleated like a frightened sheep. His eyes had fallen upon the pseudo Cicotte.

  “Can you handle a razor, Allison?” asked Ghost.

  The impostor sank into a chair. “I won’t submit to it,” he cried.

  “Your apprehensions are quick,” Ghost complimented him. “Bring soap and water, Allison, and shave this man’s moustache.”

  The butler’s eyes swung from Cicotte to the impostor and back again to Cicotte. There was agony in his glance. What under the pearly canopy, asked his imploring gaze, was the meaning of it all?

  “But—” he quavered.

  “You heard what Mr. Ghost said,” observed Cicotte coldly. “Do as you’re told.”

  The butler fled to the upper regions, convinced that he was in the clutches of a group of madmen. At any rate, he reflected wildly, the razor would be a weapon against their insanity.

  He came back shuddering.

  “I tell you I won’t submit to it,” cried the impostor, with a shriek.

  “You’ll take a sock in the jaw as an anæsthetic, if you don’t shut up,” remarked Cicotte. “And keep your face quiet or you’ll get it cut.”

  Ghost took the razor from the butler’s shaking hands. “He’ll get it cut, anyway, if Allison performs,” he smiled grimly. “Now, Mr. Holmes— if that is your name—do you want us to sit on you?”

  But the impostor had seen the light. “Go on,” he said. “You’ll all suffer for it. Here, give me the razor, and I’ll do it myself.”

  Ghost swished the steaming brush across the fellow’s lip. “I’m afraid,” he replied, not unkindly, “we couldn’t trust you not to cut your throat.”

  It was over in half a dozen dainty strokes.

  The improvement in the man’s appearance was immediate, from Cicotte’s point of view. Unconsciously, the detective breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m genuinely sorry to have submitted you to this indignity,” said Ghost. He looked inquiringly at Cicotte: “Well?”

  “I never saw him before in my life.”

  “And you, Allison?” asked Ghost sharply.

  “No, sir,” said the butler, beginning to understand. “At first he looked like Mr. Cicotte here; but now he don’t look like anybody I ever knew.”

  There was no reason to disbelieve him. Ghost shook his head in annoyance. After a moment he cocked an eye at Cicotte and lifted a shoulder in half a shrug.

  “Wasted time,” said the detective crossly. “We’ve got better ways of finding out things at the station. Will you—”

  “I’ll stay,” said Ghost.

  The detective nodded. “All right,” he agreed. Suddenly he was grinning from ear to ear. “That was pretty smart, Mr. Ghost,” he whispered. “If only it had worked out—eh? But I’ll never tell on you!”

  By which he meant that he would tell it to everybody he could persuade to listen.

  Then his hand dropped into his side pocket, where he kept a pair of small steel handcuffs. He viewed the prisoner reflectively.

  The man called Holmes again was quick to apprehend. “I’ll go with you without trouble,” he said.

  So instead of handcuffs Cicotte brought up a small, pearl-handled knife, at which he stared for an instant in perplexity. It seemed that months and years had passed since Walter Ghost had handed him that knife in the embrasure of the window. He had forgotten its existence. But for that matter so had Ghost.

  “Now what the devil did you give me this for?” demanded the detective, when he had solved the minor mystery.

  Ghost took the knife and slipped it into his pocket, laughing silently.

  “When Mr. Holmes came up the walk, a little while ago,” he replied, “his impersonation was so clever that it occurred to me there might be some difficulty in telling you apart—if you were suddenly to be shuffled. My well-known resourcefulness, Cicotte,” he added with a smile. “I was marking you against an emergency which, I know now, could not have developed.”

  His eyes followed the progress of the detective and the prisoner to the street, and saw the strange pair enter the cab that had been summoned. Then with a sense of relief he returned to the library, switched on a strong light, and brought up the stolen picture from his pocket. It was a photograph, as he had suspected.

  At first with naked eyes, then with his pocket glass, he examined the faces of the several persons in the ensemble; and then for some time he lay back in a deep chair and drew thoughtfully on a thin cigar.

  When half an hour had passed he rose briskly to his feet, ran lightly along the hall to the little L that gave upon the side balcony, leaped the balcony like an athlete, and dashed seriously around the front of the house.

  For a moment he stood, breathing easily, upon the spot where once the car had stood with Stephen Garment’s body upon its cushions. A short distance away a bed of flowers was blooming gayly. Early flowers of the spring. Irises—purple, yellow, and banded like a chevron.

  With infinite caution he pushed aside the glowing hoods, separately, one at a time, as if he were counting them; kneeling occasionally to touch the earth between their stalks.

  And finally he knelt for some time in one position, his head almost concealed among the blooms, while he examined the rusting blade that he had resurrected from the earth. There was even an initial upon the silver handle, although an effort had been made to remove it—the letter K.

  Smiling quietly to himself, Ghost shoved the blade again into the earth where he had found it, and rising to his feet returned to the house to collect his hat and stick.

  His hotel was a number of miles distant, but not too far for an earnest walker, wishing to be alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pope, Mollock, and young Mr. McDaniel made the journey to Amersham together. They viewed the horrible remains and were profoundly depressed—Mr. McDaniel, perhaps, somewhat less profoundly than his companions. He had seen such sights before, and while he never precisely enjoyed them, they had become for him a part of routine. He was a member of the party through courtesy of Mollock, and his gratitude to that benefactor was extremely touching.

  Pope, highly indignant at his sister-in-law for her hasty identification, could find no slightest resemblance between the dead woman, as he strove to visualize her, living, and the familiar personality of his wife. Her height, he admitted grudgingly, had been about the same as Myra’s. That was all.

  Mollock murmured pacifically. “After all,” he said, “Mrs. Duane was impressed by the garments and by the note in Mrs. Pope’s handwriting. It was a natural error.”

  “Mrs. Duane,” asserted Pope, with great bitterness, “is not a natural woman. She is a woman who strives to catch the public eye. She won a suburban beauty contest twenty years ago, and has never managed to get over it.”

  The novelist smiled. “Sing low, sweet chariot,” he cautioned. “We have a journalist among us, taking notes.”

  “Nothing that I say, Mr. McDaniel,” said Curly Pope, “is for publication unless I give permission. You might remark, however, somewhere in your headlines, that Mrs. Kingsley Duane is a meddling old vulture with the instincts of a vaudeville pony.”

  McDaniel grinned appreciatively. This was the way he liked to hear men talk about their families. “I won’t say that, Mr. Pope,” he responded; “but I’ll keep an eye on the old girl, for future reference. What Mr. Mollock says about the dress is right, you know. And the note! Don’t forget that note! That was Mrs. Pope’s. Hadn’t we better have a look at them?”

  But neither note nor dress was of the slightest aid in helping the yachtsman to an idea. The note was Myra’s; he supposed there could be no doubt of that. The dress, too, was hers, since she said it was. But the body might have been that of an Egyptian woman, for all he knew.

  “This woman never worked for us,” he asserted earnest
ly. “I realize the changes that death effects; and in the present case the changes are particularly horrible. But something always remains. A curve of the eyebrow? The turn of a nostril? Doesn’t it? Some faint suggestion that seems to tell one intuitively that here is—or is not—a person that one once has known? I don’t feel it telling me anything. It’s all negative. I’m sorry—but I’m positive I’m right.”

  The county policeman who had acted as showmaster was disappointed. “Well, it was just a chance,” he observed philosophically. “I suppose it’s something to know who she isn’t.”

  Mollock was visited of an inspiration. “It isn’t possible, I suppose, that she worked for Mrs. Duane?” he asked suddenly.

  The policeman was surprised. The idea had not occurred to anyone before.

  “Oh, oh!” said young Mr. McDaniel.

  “But I imagine not,” continued Mollock thoughtfully. “After all, that would be a bit thick.”

  The implications of such a solution had just flashed over him. They were faintly alarming. If the dead woman had been a servant of Mrs. Duane’s, she might conceivably have owned a dress once worn by Mrs. Pope. Mrs. Duane and Mrs. Pope were sisters. A visit between the two—and that note, left in the pocket of a discarded dress— might well account for everything. The trouble was that, in that case, Mrs. Duane was practically certain to have known the truth, wasn’t she? And, knowing the truth, to have lied when she identified the body! Myra Pope, giving an old dress to her sister’s maid, could not be expected to remember the transaction indefinitely; but to the maid it would be an event. And the maid would wear the garment under the eyes of Mrs. Kingsley Duane for a period longer, no doubt, than ever it had been worn by Myra Pope.

  No, it wouldn’t do. Would it?

  Damn it! Why should Mrs. Duane—?

  Curly Pope, however, was jubilant. “Mollock,” he cried, “I believe you’ve hit it! You’ve found the missing link!” He swung upon the bewildered policeman. “Don’t you see? It would explain everything.”

  The county policeman saw only too clearly. “It might make a liar out of Mrs. Duane,” he pointed out.

  Pope was not impressed by the difficulty. “Oh, that!” he said. A little thing like a lie, his shrug conveyed, would not stop Mrs. Kingsley Duane if she had determined to break into print.

  Mollock, whose original idea it had been, continued to be dubious. He was, indeed, a trifle alarmed by the enthusiasm with which his inspiration had been received.

  “You surely don’t believe she killed this maid, Curly,” he protested, “just to get publicity!”

  They had both forgotten that young Mr. McDaniel was listening with ears that fairly flapped in their eagerness.

  The sportsman hesitated. He didn’t really believe that Mrs. Duane had killed anybody—or would kill anybody. It had merely pleased him to be able, in his turn, to embarrass Mrs. Duane.

  “N-no, I suppose I don’t,” he admitted. It pained him, though, to give up the idea. “No, that’s out, I guess.” His eyes fell upon young Mr. McDaniel. “Forget it, McDaniel.”

  “I won’t print it,” promised the reporter, “but I can’t forget it. It’s a whale of an idea. Just suppose it were the truth! Suppose, for that matter, that somebody else killed this woman, and Mrs. Duane just knew about it—I don’t know how—”

  “Oh, that’s all tommyrot,” said Mollock, wishing he had never been given the idea. “If somebody else had killed this woman, and Mrs. Duane knew about it, she’d report it, of course. Let’s get out of here before I have any more hunches.”

  They left the policeman looking after them meditatively. It was a smashing idea, at that. Could it be true? he wondered.

  Mollock himself was none too easy on the subject, although he was now anxious to keep away from it. It was a notion to be broached to Walter Ghost, not to a reporter and a policeman. He wished heartily that he had held his tongue.

  Mrs. Duane lived in New York. Her associations were New York associations. Amersham was a fashionable suburb, where doubtless she had friends. Perhaps even a cottage of her own; there was something to look into. But why should Mrs. Kingsley Duane have bothered to murder one of her maids—to murder anybody, for that matter— no, it had to be a maid!—and leave the body to be identified as that of her sister? Or, if somebody else had done the actual deed, why should Mrs. Kingsley Duane, etc., etc., etc.?

  It was all very puzzling. At the station, in New York, he stopped long enough to send a wire to Walter Ghost in Chicago; then continued with Pope to the hotel where the yachtsman and his wife were staying.

  John Lexington Pope had repented himself of his earlier recklessness. He was now apprehensive. “I say, Mollock,” he observed, “we’d better say nothing to Myra about that idea of yours—or about my comments on it—eh?”

  Mollock agreed. “Mum’s the word,” he said. “It’s all damn’ nonsense, anyway.”

  “She may even be with Myra when we go in,” continued Pope, relieved. “She’ll rush you, you know, because you’re an author. You won’t mind, will you?”

  “I love it,” said Mollock.

  “Good! I’ll rustle up some liquor for us as soon as possible, and it won’t be so bad. She doesn’t drink, herself, and maybe it’ll drive her away. By the way—I couldn’t ask in front of that newspaper man—what did Betty have to say about Dromgoole?”

  “She left the library with him the night of Garment’s murder, as we recalled. He went right on into the living room, she thinks. Even so, I suppose he might have turned back—although there can’t have been much time to spare. He didn’t go on out at the front, of course—supposing him to be the murderer. He’d have been seen crossing the living room to the door.”

  “I can’t quite see the beggar as a murderer,” said Pope. “If it weren’t for his grabbing off those codes of Johnson’s, he’d be about the last man one would suspect. Eh?”

  “I can’t see Kimbark, either,” said Mollock, “although I confess I don’t particularly like the man.”

  “Kimbark’s all right,” defended the yachtsman. “Got to know him to like him. Then you like him a lot. He’s queer, but he’s right inside. That’s the bunk about Kimbark doing it. I was with him when Nidia sent Key to call him—to tell him that Garment was coming. So were you. What chance had he to dash outside and commit a murder? About as much as we did! He went on to the living room, of course; and right afterward the doorbell began to ring. Cicotte gives me a pain. He ran onto that gossip about Garment and Nidia, and it handed him an easy motive. Now he can’t see anybody but Kimbark.”

  Pope was thoughtful. “And the hell of it is,” he continued, “it’s one of those sure-fire motives. Detectives love ’em.”

  “I’m a little tired of the woman angle myself,” said Mollock. “I’m beginning to wonder if a woman had anything to do with it—directly or indirectly. There are other motives than women; and they don’t have to be anything immediate. Ghost doesn’t need me to instruct him; but if I were in charge of this case I’d begin to look up the men in Garment’s past who might have a reason for abolishing him.”

  Mrs. Duane, it developed, was with her sister. The opportunity to get back at his sister-in-law was too good to postpone, it occurred to Pope, who had regained his courage. When he had introduced the celebrated Mollock, he plunged at once to the heart of the recent discussion.

  “By the way, Kitty,” he observed, “an interesting point has arisen in connection with that dress of Myra’s.”

  Both women looked startled, as did Mollock. Now that it was out, Pope was himself appalled; but he continued placidly enough.

  “Isn’t it just possible that some servant of yours acquired the thing? That way, the whole matter would be simplified. It would account for your recognition of the dress, you see; and as for that note, it might have been left in the pocket—eh?— to be found there by the maid!”

  Mrs. Kingsley Duane’s jaw set ominously. Her neck was suddenly a violent red.

  “You mean,�
� she asked, “that I, knowing it to have been given to a maid, identified it as Myra’s to suggest that Myra was the victim?”

  “Not at all,” said Pope hastily. “After all, you did suggest that Myra was the victim—by error, of course! I suggest that you knew nothing about its having been given away—nothing at all. You wouldn’t necessarily, would you? Myra’s careless enough about her clothes, God knows! She might have given it to the maid and have said nothing about it. Whenever it happened, of course, it was a long time ago. Myra herself doesn’t remember what she did with the dress.”

  Mrs. Pope shook her head. “I think I’d have remembered that, Curly. The fact that it was Kitty who identified the body would have suggested it to me. But, anyway, I don’t believe I ever gave a dress to one of Kitty’s maids.”

  “I know you didn’t,” snapped Mrs. Duane. “Curly’s just annoyed because I made the mistake. He’s trying to embarrass me. Furthermore,” she asserted, with rising sarcasm, “my maids are all with me yet. I’ve had them all for years. None of them have been murdered or have committed suicide. I don’t have that kind of maids.”

  The yachtsman shrugged, glancing furtively at Mollock. “Well,” he muttered, “there was no harm in throwing out the suggestion.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Mollock, “the idea was really mine. The case puzzled me, and in turning it over in my mind it occurred to me that, between sisters, old garments might possibly change hands and the incident be forgotten. It seemed to be a reasonable explanation of the presence of the note, you see, which is a more mysterious affair than the matter of the dress. If I’ve sinned, I must ask to be forgiven.”

  “It’s of no consequence,” asserted Mrs. Kingsley Duane, somewhat mollified. Dunstan Mollock was a celebrity, after all, and celebrities were important in her life. She smiled her most pleasing smile. “No, it’s really of no consequence, Mr. Mollock. Indeed, as Curly says, it was a happy thought —marred only by the circumstance that it isn’t true.”

  “Which being the case, I now suggest that we forget it,” said Pope. “I asked Anger to bring Miss Waterloo to tea, if she cared to come. I suppose you haven’t heard from them?”