Puzzle of the Pepper Tree

by Stuart Palmer

  “Body snatchers most likely done it,” insisted Ruggles, the octogenarian deputy.

  “Looks more like a crazy practical joke,” suggested O’Rourke. “Couldn’t be body-snatching. There’s no medical school where anybody could sell a body near here.”

  “Doesn’t look at all practical, or like a joke either, stealing bodies like this,” protested Chief Britt heavily. “This thing’s getting to be too much of a mystery for my taste.”

  “That’s where we differ,” cut in Miss Withers brightly. “The more complicated a case is, the easier it is to break. Inspector Piper has told me that many a time. All the same, this stealing of the corpse looks simple enough.”

  “Huh?” Chief Britt scratched his neck, and his shoulders were sagging.

  “The murderer returned to steal the body of his victim,” insisted Miss Withers. “For a very good reason—he knew he could no longer hope for a certificate of natural death, and he dared not let Dr. O’Rourke make an autopsy for fear of what would be discovered!”

  Chief Britt shook his head. “But this crazy business of substituting the skeleton—”

  “That was an afterthought,” Miss Withers decided. “When he—or she or they, for that matter—crept through the window last night, he didn’t know if the doctor had come in yet. He couldn’t risk having the alarm raised at once. Or perhaps he feared someone might look in and see that the body was gone. He needed something to make the sheet bulge up—went to the closet for a coat and saw the skeleton—and there you are!”

  “There I am,” repeated Britt sadly. He led the way out of the infirmary. But his attempt at making anything of the trampled prints outside the door was interrupted.

  The voices that Dr. O’Rourke had heard early that morning raised in argument were still going on. “Ain’t a-goin’ to buy ye a new one and that’s all there is to it,” someone was insisting.

  A man in faded blue denim caught sight of the chief. “Hey, Amos—here’s a case of petty larceny for you! Somebody stole George’s wheelbarrow.”

  “Go on and let me be,” retorted Chief Britt, with an edge to his tone. “I got me more important worries than to hunt up lost tools for your ditch diggers.”

  “Perhaps you haven’t,” said Hildegarde Withers softly. With the tip of her umbrella she poked at that flat and wavering indentation in the dusty ground, which led along the side of the infirmary.

  Britt stopped short and stared at her. “Perhaps hunting for that lost tool is your most important worry right now,” she went on. “I don’t know much about such implements, but couldn’t this mark have been made by a wheelbarrow?”

  Chief Britt squatted laboriously. “Looks like it could,” he admitted. “And it runs where no wheelbarrow would naturally go—which means—”

  “Say!” Deputy Ruggles brightened. “Then all we got to do is to follow this trail and find the body again!”

  He set out hopefully and came back wreathed in clouds. “Lost the marks in the alley,” he confessed.

  He found Miss Withers and the chief walking slowly down the street in the bright sunlight, their oddly contrasting shadows slanting behind.

  “But why—” Britt wanted to know.

  “It isn’t time to ask why,” Miss Withers told him sharply. “You ought to be asking how—how anyone could have climbed through that window, stolen a corpse in the room underneath the one where the doctor was supposedly asleep, and taken it away on one of the noisiest conveyances ever invented. That’s what you ought to be asking.”

  Britt pulled at his lower lip thoughtfully. “Does look funny. But O’Rourke is a heavy sleeper. There was a fire across the alley from his place a month or so ago, and both our engines and everybody in town turned out. He slept through it. This is a pretty sleepy town after sundown, ma’am. And when the Casino shuts down at twelve-thirty or so, then everybody is in bed.”

  They were standing in the doorway of the curio shop. “But don’t you have policemen or patrolmen or something?” Miss Withers, used to Manhattan with its cop on every corner, was scandalized.

  “There’s only me and Ruggles,” said the chief gently. “And most generally we have to sleep at night. Of course”—Britt held the screen door of his shop open—“Of course, there’s Higgins. He’s night watchman on the docks. We’ll ask him if he heard anything.”

  Miss Withers followed the chief back into his office in the rear and heard him take down the telephone and request the immediate presence of Mr. Dan Higgins. There was some argument over the phone, but finally he replaced the receiver.

  “Dan’s just got to bed, his wife says,” he told Miss Withers. “Seems sort of mean to wake him.”

  Mr. Higgins was even more decided about it when he arrived, in suspenders and carpet slippers. “Naw, I didn’t see nothing and I didn’t hear nothing,” he insisted. “It was quiet as a tomb last night—and dark as pitch too, after the fog came in. I was on the dock all night, and no matter what anybody says, I never closed an eye.”

  “All right, Dan, you can go close one now,” said the chief.

  “Wait a moment, please,” interrupted Miss Withers. “Aren’t you going to ask Mr. Higgins if any ships left the harbor last night?”

  The chief looked as if he regretted heartily having allowed her to remain. But he put the question. “Any boats sail, Dan?”

  “Never a one,” said Dan Higgins. “The two piers was dead as a doornail. Sometimes fellows go out fishing, but not this morning. Never a boat—wait a minute.”

  Higgins frowned with acute concentration. “There was one boat, Amos. But she didn’t land. Dory come ashore from the City of Saunders that anchored offshore about midnight. Narveson, the Swede that owns the outfit, came down to the dock and yelled to the men that they’d have to wait for him another day, and they pulled off.”

  “And they didn’t come back to shore?” Miss Withers asked.

  “Not that I saw,” grumbled Higgins. “They could have landed on the rocks somewhere, but I don’t see why.”

  Miss Withers intimated that she did see. “One thing more—what time did you say the fog came in?”

  Higgins scratched his head to stimulate memory. “I’d say about one o’clock it got real thick.”

  “And it lasted all night?”

  Higgins shook his head. “Only till about an hour or so before sunrise. I’d say a little afore three.”

  He was given permission to return to his bed, and Miss Withers faced the chief.

  “There you are,” she said triumphantly. “Very simple. If the body didn’t leave the island last night, it’s still here. All you have to do is to search the place thoroughly.”

  Chief Britt nodded a little sadly. “Catalina Island is over twenty miles long and near on to seven miles wide,” he explained. “A search party couldn’t even get across some of those canyons in the back country.”

  “Amos, you don’t need no search party,” interrupted Deputy Ruggles, who had been an interested observer from the doorway. “If the body was dumped in any of them canyons, all we need to do is set out on a mountain top and watch where the gulls is thickest. They’re worser’n vultures.”

  Miss Withers shivered slightly. Then she changed the subject. “It seems very unlikely to me that the body was carried very far when a wheelbarrow was the only means of transportation,” she pointed out. “The body probably lies in a shallow grave somewhere near by.”

  She rose to her feet. “I’ll leave you to your labors, Chief Britt. I did not imagine, when I came after my sketchbook this morning, that I’d be privileged to see such a whirl of excitement. May I have the book?”

  Chief Britt looked blank.

  “I lent it to you yesterday when you were making a list of Forrest’s personal belongings,” she reminded him. “I want it back, because there are some unfinished sketches of trees in it.”

  Britt pawed through the heap of litter on his desk and finally found the linen-bound book. Laboriously he tore out the sheet containing his notes.
At that moment two letters slipped out from the pages.

  “If those are the letters which were in Forrest’s pocket, I think you have a right to open them,” suggested Miss Withers. “What’s more, I think you ought to.”

  Britt nodded. “I meant to, soon as I could get around to it.” He took a heavy jackknife from his pocket, and slit the scented envelope.

  As he read, Miss Withers shamelessly peered over his shoulder. The letter was short, but not disappointing. The writing was feminine and careful:

  HELLO, MR. FORREST:

  Just to let you know that a lawyer from Mr. Welch was to see me and he says Mr. Welch is going to Europe because it is not very healthy around here. He said he heard that you were thinking of coming back, but he said he didn’t think it would be healthy for you because Mack wouldn’t like it. I was up to your house Sunday like you said but Mae was there and wouldn’t let me in. She said she was sending all your stuff to Acme storage and if you wanted your gun you could get it there. She said a lot more too.

  Yrs. respectfully,

  Mabel (Blumberg)

  P.S. I have another job so don’t worry about me.

  “H’m,” said the chief. “Mae’s his wife. Wonder who Mabel is?”

  “And I wonder who Mack is,” said Miss Withers. “This was a warning letter, Mr. Britt. Too bad Forrest didn’t stop to open it that morning.”

  The chief put it aside and took up the official-looking envelope with the letterhead of Fishbein, O’Hara & Fishbein. This was even shorter, and still more interesting. The envelope was addressed to “Mr. Roswell,” but the letter to Roswell T Forrest:

  At your request we have communicated with our client, Mrs. Mae Timmons Forrest, and are sorry to announce that your wife refuses to consider changing her pending suit for absolute divorce to one of separation.

  Yours very truly,

  AARON FISHBEIN.

  “Which explains why she was willing to bury him only if absolutely necessary,” Miss Withers pointed out.

  Ruggles’s excited voice broke in upon them. “Say, Amos—I just saw the Kelsey guy who gave me the slip last night! He’s going down the street talking to that La Fond woman!”

  “Get him and bring him here,” ordered Chief Britt. Ruggles leaped to obey. “That guy knows a lot of things he hasn’t told us—and besides, he was on the loose last night.”

  “Which is in itself proof of guilt,” sarcastically suggested Miss Withers. She relieved the chief by picking up her sketchbook and moving toward the door.

  As she passed out through the crowded counters of the curio shop, she came face to face with Barney Kelsey, the young man with the gray hair. There was no sign of Phyllis, and Kelsey was in the tight grasp of Deputy Ruggles.

  All the same he smiled a good-morning to Miss Withers. She paused a moment. “Mr. Kelsey, when and if the chief sets you at liberty, I’d like a chat with you.” She noticed that the palm of his right hand bore a large blister.

  Barney Kelsey studied her. “Any time at all,” he said, without enthusiasm. Then he preceded Ruggles back into the office.

  Miss Withers stared after him. “A tough nut to crack,” she said to herself. “But I wonder if there isn’t a way to crack him.”

  By way of a pleasant contrast to her adventures of the morning, Miss Withers while striding down the Main Street chanced upon the newlyweds. They were buying picture postcards at a candy stand, and Kay hailed her.

  “Good-morning, Miss Withers!” The events of the preceding day had touched Kay Deving lightly. Only her voice was a little strained. “I was wondering—”

  “We were wondering—” put in Marvin.

  “Marvy and I were wondering—about this dreadful business and everything—”

  “Don’t let it spoil your honeymoon,” advised Miss Withers cheerily. “Just think what a lot of excitement you’re having. Not like most honeymoons, I can tell you. You can tell your children about all this.”

  “Yeah,” said Kay doubtfully. But her words had brightened Marvin considerably.

  “But we wanted to ask you,” he continued. “Do you know if the doctor finished the autopsy and what he decided? I hope that poor guy wasn’t murdered, as you seemed to think.”

  Miss Withers stared at him. It had not occurred to her that the news of the missing body was not already blazoned from the housetops.

  “Didn’t you know?” she said kindly. “There’s been another accident. There was no autopsy this morning because while we were sleeping last night somebody stole the body and left a skeleton in its place!”

  Miss Withers paused for dramatic effect—and received an effect that she had not bargained for. Marvin Deving took it rather well, though his face, which had been colorless, flushed as if he had found breath again. Kay was trembling and as shocked as if she herself had come face to face with the grim relic on the infirmary table. The brown eyes were luminous.

  “It can’t be true—why—” She shook her head, so that the red curls were loosened. She turned quickly toward Marvin and then back to Miss Withers. “It can’t be true—such things don’t happen—you’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “I wish I were,” said Hildegarde Withers. “Now you children run along and forget all this black trouble.”

  “I wish we could,” said Kay. But gratefully they watched her out of sight.

  Ten minutes later Miss Withers walked in upon James Michael O’Rourke, who was engaged at the moment in pacing up and down the infirmary floor. Nurse Smith obligingly disappeared, and Miss Withers surveyed the little doctor through cool blue eyes.

  “Well,” said O’Rourke uncomfortably. “I suppose you came to crow.”

  “Came to scoff and remained to pray,” she quoted. “Doctor, I suppose that you agree with me now about the need for that autopsy?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Need or no need, it can’t be performed without a corpse. My midnight visitor left me a bag of bones, but whatever was to be discovered from the corpse is beyond our reach now.”

  “That’s why I came,” said Hildegarde Withers. “I’m not so sure. You see, yesterday afternoon the murderer struck again—”

  “Good heavens, woman! Another corpse?”

  She shook her head. “As it happened, no. And I think the whole thing was an accident. But a little dog named Mister Jones nearly died of whatever killed Roswell Forrest. I saved his life by giving him an emetic of sea water after we left the Dragonfly. He was very sick on a rock. I wondered—”

  “But, Miss Withers, why should anyone want to kill a little dog?”

  “I don’t think anybody did,” she explained. “But Forrest died in a certain seat on that plane. Miss La Fond’s little dog was under that same seat, later that day, and came out deathly sick. Suppose there was a capsule of poison—and the dog picked it up? It might be there still, where he threw it up, mightn’t it?”

  “No capsule could do that,” pointed out O’Rourke. “But—”

  “But me no buts,” Miss Withers told him. “Come on, we’re going to hire the bus and go up there and see. I should have thought of it sooner.”

  She carried along the doctor by sheer weight of purpose. Still arguing, they caromed over the hills to the airport landing and hastened down to the beach. “We’re in luck,” Miss Withers called out. “The rock is well above high tide.”

  So it was, but there was no sign of anything that Mister Jones might have deposited there.

  For a long time they searched, with O’Rourke increasingly skeptical and Miss Withers considerably nettled.

  The clear blue-green waves rolled in from the open sea in a monotonous procession, splashing foam over her stout calfskin oxfords. Half a mile out from shore, a broken bundle of white feathers rose and fell on those same clear blue-green rollers, but Miss Withers and the doctor were looking for other evidence than the lifeless body of a murdered sea gull.

  CHAPTER X

  A SMOOTH-LIMBED, VIRGINAL YOUNG pepper tree dominated the view from Miss Wit
hers’s window at the hotel. It stood a few hundred feet away, on the very edge of the cliff overlooking roadway and beach, so that at noon its trailing foliage was silhouetted against the sun, and a long pale shadow ran down almost to the hotel balcony.

  The vacationing schoolma’am had come to take a special interest in this little pepper tree. This was partly because it was the only tree in sight. Miss Withers considered palms only overgrown ferns and was firmly convinced that, like most of the rest of Southern California’s greenery, they were rented from the florist and that one of these days the men would come to take them back.

  But more intriguing than the little tree’s resemblance to Eastern trees was the fact that, on the second day of her stay at Catalina, she had been privileged to witness a small landslide some distance along the shore. This accident had deposited the pepper tree in the surf, from which it had been salvaged by the hotel handyman and taken to its present resting place. There had been much ado about fertilizer and water, and Miss Withers gathered that it was a matter of touch and go whether the little pepper tree would survive the rude transplantation at this time of year.

  “The ground’s like dusty powder,” Rogers, the ancient and garrulous handyman, had remarked, as she constituted herself unofficial supervisor of the tree-planting. “It’s a poor chance she’s got, set in this red clay. But they tells me to plant her in the rock garden and in the rock garden I’ll plant her.”

  “You might have set the tree where it wouldn’t be in danger of sliding down the cliff again,” Miss Withers had pointed out. But by that time the planting was done.

  Before the mystery of the demise of Roswell T. Forrest had usurped her time and her thoughts, Miss Withers had been in the habit of looking first thing each morning and last thing at night to see if the pepper tree was still there. But now all the pleasant routine of her vacation was pushed aside.

  Today Miss Withers returned, hot and dusty and disgusted, from her fruitless trip to the airport beach in search of whatever it was that had caused Mister Jones such acute illness. She could hear the little dog whining in the next room, a sure sign that Phyllis was out.