Lay On, Mac Duff!

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “Yes.” Her breath seemed short. “I’ll speak to him about you when I can.” Then, as if Duff’s silence needed denial, she said angrily, “It is quite absurd to think that my husband is involved in any way with this … this nonsense, you know.”

  What Mac Duff did might be called turning a hair. I mean, the very slightest reaction there can be is what he displayed then. “Not to say murder is nonsense,” Lina said, nearly tearful, “but it’s nonsense for Charles! You understand?”

  I had never seen her disturbed before. There was emotion, but what was it?

  “Thank you,” Mac Duff said. She turned her lovely back. Effans, in the hall, said, “Mr. Gaskell,” and, froggier than ever with a white bosom, his short figure appeared. Lina did not introduce him to anyone. She slid her wrap around her with a quick swish, said, “Good night,” with an icy little bow over her shoulder, and went off, the Frog’s stream of admiring remarks following her like a wake.

  “Gosh!” J.J. said, “a regular stunner!”

  “I told you,” I said crossly.

  Hugh said, “Lina’s upset, isn’t she? I wonder …”

  I reached for J.J.’s sleeve to stop a little thrill of fear that touched my heart again.

  Chapter Nine

  “It’s dinner time,” Duff said.

  “Wait,” I went out into the hall and found Effans. I told him we’d not be ready for dinner for at least half an hour. When I returned Duff was saying:

  “And your duties?”

  “I worked in his laboratory. It occupied the front part of the basement. He was going to launch a line of new cosmetics. It was my business to concoct recipes for them. There was nothing difficult about the work. All he wanted was something that smelled nice and looked expensive. He didn’t care what the ingredients were. Before the cosmetic idea, I worked on a dehydrated vegetable soup. I was also a kind of secretary for him, although he kept most of his own secrets.”

  “You lived there?”

  “Yes, in the middle room on a court. His office was at the front, his bed-sitting room at the back. He never entertained.”

  “I see. You have worked for him for how long?”

  “Two years.”

  “Before that?”

  “I come from Minnesota,” Hugh said. “I worked for a mill, manufacturer of wheat flour.”

  “A graduate chemist of what school?”

  “I never was graduated,” Hugh said. “Two years at the University of Wisconsin. One reason I’m no farther along.” He spoke rather bitterly. I realized that he looked like an undergraduate. A little bit faded, shabby, worn, too old, of course, but he’d have been quite inconspicuous on a campus.

  “Thank you,” Duff said. “Now, you three must start at the beginning and tell me exactly what you suspect Mr. Cathcart of doing. What happened or might have happened? What are you afraid did happen?” He settled himself to listen; the whole man sat perfectly still. I was lost. I had expected him to tell us.

  “Well,” J.J. said, clearing his throat, “… uh …”

  “It’s just all those little things,” I said.

  “We were afraid he went up there,” Hugh said. Mac Duff said nothing. I felt challenged and began to think.

  Hugh said, “Winberry left this house at 12:30. Everyone knew he had a stop to make, and would get home somewhat late. After about 12:40, no one seems to be able to say Mr. Cathcart was here.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Effans went up when we did. Ellen was already asleep. Cook never comes up out of the basement.” J.J. was staring. “I grilled Effans,” I explained.

  “You’re wonderful,” he said and continued, “well then, at 12:45 approx., a man took a cab at this corner and was let out at Broadway and 108th Street at approx. 1:05. He had a deformed little finger on his right hand. Evidence of the cab driver. So has Cathcart.”

  Hugh gasped. “That’s …! Did you know that?” I nodded miserably. “About that time,” Hugh went on, excited, “Winberry was heard to enter—”

  “At 1:08, approx.,” J.J. put in from his pieces of paper. “Entered house and flat. Used key. Peter Finn, his evidence. Called up to him and he answered.”

  “He seems to have removed his hat and coat,” Hugh said, “but not to have left the front room. At 1:15, Peter heard another person enter, using a key. I had lost my key. We found it here in a cigarette box where I certainly had not left it.”

  “Effans did not find it,” I said. “We … guess … Uncle Charles did.”

  “We therefore think the man in the cab”—J.J. picked up the story—“who was uncle, entered Winberry’s flat with Hugh’s key, shot Winberry with his own gun, which was handy and which he might easily have known where to find. Shot fired at 1:16. Not approx. Exactly.”

  “Mr. Cathcart walks in, shoots Mr. Winberry. Then what?”

  “Then he leaves a red parcheesi man on the corpse’s chest,” J.J. murmured.

  “It was not quite a corpse yet,” Mac Duff reminded us. “It was a dying man who said, ‘I never saw him.’ Why did he say he never saw Cathcart before.”

  “Disguise,” I said.”

  “To shield Cathcart?” J.J. suggested. “Neither seems likely somehow.” Hugh said nothing.

  “Go on. Tell me why on earth he left a piece of his own property, the red man, to point to him?”

  “It needn’t point to him,” Hugh said, “because Bessie saw him throw three of them out the window and he knew she saw him.”

  “Why throw them out the window?” Mac Duff asked.

  We were stumped.

  “I thought at the time,” I began “… it seemed to me he was so disgusted with Winberry’s nastiness he’d decided never to play again. Also, maybe he was annoyed that he’d lost. They say he usually won. It seems childish. I don’t know. They were the three defeated pieces.”

  “Did he make any gesture toward the rest of the set?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, had he perhaps intended to throw them all away until you interrupted him?”

  “I can’t tell,” I said, “I gasped and he saw me.”

  “If he had in the back of his mind, even then, a use for them,” Hugh said quickly, “then perhaps … Well, I wondered if he knew she was there all the time.”

  “What was the use of them?”

  “A symbol,” Hugh said.

  Mac Duff looked interested. “A symbol of what?”

  “Everybody mistook it for a Peppinger,” he said as if we’d understand now.

  “What had Mr. Cathcart and Mr. Winberry to do with Peppingers?” Mac Duff asked. “They were a very popular candy spice drop about ten or more years ago.”

  “They were a sensation,” Hugh said. “A rage, a fad, you might say. The advertising, you see, hinted that they pepped you up. Pep and ginger. As a matter of fact, they did have some drug content. That’s why the government, under the Pure Food and Drug Act, ruined the whole thing, Suddenly, Peppingers made a fortune, and then, overnight, they were no good at all. It was a scandal. They had to change their formula or go out of business. One was much the same as the other. If they had changed the formula and gone on, some people would still have been afraid of them for their children. Other people wouldn’t have been interested in plain candy. It blew up.”

  “When?”

  “In 19—”

  “Oh, my goodness, I remember,” I said. “They were forbidden, all of a sudden, and then I never saw them any more.”

  “Yes, it blew up,” Hugh said, “but your uncle didn’t suffer. You see, all four, Winberry, Gaskell, Maxon, and Cathcart, were the original promoters of Peppingers. They bought the formula and went after them at a great rate. But—I gather all this from Winberry, not too directly, you know—Winberry and Gaskell somehow or other got the tip that the government was going to investigate. So they sold out to the other two without saying why.”

  “Leaving Cathcart and Maxon holding the baby, eh?” J.J. said. “That was neighborly.”

>   “But Cathcart always gets out of everything. He sold out to Maxon just in time.”

  “Nice fellows, all around.”

  “Then I believe he rather generously helped Maxon back on his feet again after the crash.” Hugh said wryly, “Maxon was pretty young and in company too fast for him. Cathcart ended up with just about all the realizable cash. He bought Winberry and Gaskell out cheap and sold out dear. The others must have felt like pikers when they saw what he did to Maxon.”

  “Not pretty,” J.J. said.

  “But they were supposed to be friends,” I said. “Why, if they’ve been enemies ever since …?”

  “Enemies are just as much fun as friends for some folks,” J.J. told me. “Well, there’s your motive.”

  “Stale,” Mac Duff said.

  “But,” I objected, “Winberry was so very nasty. Hatred, you see …”

  “Brought to the boiling point last night,” Hugh said eagerly. “It’s possible.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes, I do.” Hugh was in earnest. “Yes, I do. Suppose you’ve hated a man a long long time. Perhaps thought before what you’d like to do to him. And then, on one occasion, he irritates you so that you can’t stand it.”

  Mac Duff said, “Emotion,” and nodded.

  “I don’t carry grudges myself,” J.J. said, “but I understand they can grow in.”

  We were all quiet. I was thinking hard.

  “But,” I said finally, “isn’t the Peppinger business a motive for Maxon too?”

  “Aha!” said J.J.

  “And he might have got hold of the red man,” I pointed out. “You see, he stood talking to Lina while my uncle came upstairs. So he might have been below the window when they fell. But probably he has an alibi.”

  “Don’t cry,” J.J. said, “he has not. Says he went home, went to bed. Lives in a hotel. Who knows?”

  “Don’t the hotel people know?”

  “It’s a cheesy little hotel. I doubt if they can be sure.”

  “But,” Hugh said, “why didn’t Cathcart answer the telephone?”

  “The first time?”

  “At ten minutes of two. If he’d been uptown at 1:16, he might almost have made it back here. He did make it by two o’clock. I mean …”

  “Assuming he’s guilty,” Duff said. “Tell me this. Why didn’t the phone ring more than twice?”

  “What?”

  “Only twice.”

  Hugh turned his head. “Oh, I hung up, you know. If he’d been in the room … after all, it was the middle of the night. I didn’t want to—”

  “You might have supposed he’d be asleep. It takes a man a while to waken.”

  “My God,” Hugh said, “did I do that? I don’t know why, but I somehow or other just assumed he’d not have gone to bed yet. Maybe because so much had happened to drive sleep out of me. Why, the whole thing falls down if he was here and I hung up before he got across the room. Did I make that mistake! Of course, if he were in bed … if he were asleep … Stupid!”

  “He had his shoes on,” I said in a weak voice. “I just assume my uncle doesn’t nap in chairs. But I do assume it.”

  “The whole thing doesn’t fall down, anyway,” J.J. said thoughtfully. “He may have made it back here in thirty-four minutes. Fairly easily at that time of night. What do you say, Mac?”

  Mac Duff smiled. “It was one of the little things that made you suspect him,” he said, “now, wasn’t it? Yet he may or may not have been here. The point I can’t get over is Winberry’s last words. If Winberry meant he did not know his assailant, the assailant wasn’t Cathcart. I skip the disguise. Revenger requires that the victim know who’s killing him and why. Hence the red man, or so we suppose. We can’t have it both ways.”

  “‘I never saw him,’” Hugh murmured.

  “Just four words.”

  “That’s all.”

  J.J. said, “Maybe he meant ‘I never saw him pick up the gun.’”

  “Why didn’t he see? Was there a light?”

  “The light was on,” Hugh said.

  “I never saw him before. I never saw him at all. I never saw him because …” J.J. was muttering away.

  “Wait.” It was Hugh. Mac Duff waited with that blank passivity of his that seemed to pull words out of people. “I may be crazy. But Winberry wore eyeglasses, and so do I. You people might not realize, but, whenever I come into a warm room from the cold, my glasses steam over. It sometimes takes a little while to see.”

  “His eyeglasses were on him?” J.J. demanded.

  “Oh, yes. He lay on his back, his legs were sideways. His glasses were all right.”

  “It doesn’t matter, you know,” Duff murmured, “where they were after he fell. Did Winberry use that phrase, ‘I never,’ for ‘I did not’?”

  “He did,” I cried. “In the parcheesi game. Several times.”

  “It’s very common, of course,” Duff said. “Well?”

  “So he might not have been able to see. That’s what he meant,” Hugh said.

  “Why did the murderer take off Winberry’s hat and coat, then, and so carefully hang them up for him after he was shot?”

  “What?” J.J. said. “Wait a minute.”

  “How long does this mist on eyeglasses endure? From 1:08 to 1:16?”

  “Of course not,” Hugh said softly. “Stupid, stupid …”

  “If Winberry couldn’t see at 1:16, he came in no earlier than 1:15, if that early,” Duff said.

  “The second man!” I cried.

  “Was Winberry,” J.J. said, “which also … hence … Look, he leaves his club at one, arrives at 1:15, a reasonable time for that trip.” He patted my hand.

  “And why the hat and coat?” Duff said quietly. “Was there time for the murderer to have removed them?”

  “Peter Finn took a while to get steam up,” J.J. said. “I betcha there was. And when Peter got to the street door our man was only then making off down the street.”

  “If it was our man,” Duff reminded him. “Now, let’s see. The mysterious cab fare with the crooked finger disembarked—”

  “At 1:05,” Hugh cried. “Just time to get to the flat, enter first—”

  “At 1:08,” J.J. said. “It fits.”

  “So the murderer had plenty of time to get the gun out and be waiting.”

  “Winberry walks in, blind, at 1:15. He shoots,” I said, “immediately.”

  “How was he lying?”

  “Feet to the door.”

  “Might fall so?”

  “Might.” J.J. got up and fell down for us. It was like the movies. A crumpling of his knees, a dizzy half turn, a fall, and he lay, back down, facing where his back had been before.

  “Oh, get up, quick,” I cried, “I don’t like it!”

  “But why the hat and coat?” Duff insisted. “Can any of you think of a reason for that? He could not possibly have known what Winberry was going, to say. He must have thought him dead.”

  “He wanted it thought that he came in second,” J.J. said.

  “Why?”

  “To cover,” Hugh said slowly, “the cab-driver business, the crooked finger. Suppose he realizes that he forgot to conceal that deformity? He realizes that the cab driver may have noticed it and might, therefore, link his fare to this part of town, this corner. He doesn’t want to be linked to this corner. Not if he’s Cathcart, who lives here. So he tries to confuse the time. The cab driver might not connect his man with a murderer who got to the flat later.”

  “It’s not enough later,” J.J. said.

  “Yes, but it’s not quite so pat. And wouldn’t we have asked ourselves, where was the man with the crooked finger from 1:05 to 1:15.”

  “Well, we didn’t,” J.J. said flatly. “We never saw it.”

  “Yes, a common phrase,” Mac Duff murmured. “No, we didn’t notice that the cab fare took a little too long to walk half a block.”

  “He could have been lurking in a doorway, for heaven’s sake,�
� J.J. said impatiently.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Hugh threw up the sponge. “It’s all speculation.”

  “Very fussy, our murderer,” mused Mac Duff. “Full of little thoughts. Either he did come in last, or he wished it thought that he came in last. Where were you at that time?”

  “I?” Hugh seemed surprised. “Let’s see. At 1:05 … I don’t know, but I suppose that just about then the bus we had transferred ourselves to was starting up. I got off at just about 1:15 at the corner of 110th. I stopped in at the drugstore. Got to the flat at 1:22.”

  “Close work,” J.J. said.

  “It’s too close,” Hugh said wrily. “I’d rather the murderer came in first.”

  “Why?”

  “Because at 1:08, the police know I was on the bus. But the second man came in awfully close to the time I got off. Too close to be comfortable.”

  “Anybody,” J.J. said thoughtfully, “might lose track of one minute.”

  “That’s why, you see, I’d rather the murderer came in first.”

  “Perhaps he did,” Mac Duff said. “J.J., I think you and I must go now.”

  “But what about it?”

  Mac Duff was standing. “I don’t know,” he said. “Let me assure you that I do not know already who did what and why. I wish I did.”

  “You think more’s going on? That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Gaskell’s afraid, and I don’t blame him. But since he seems to know as much, if not a great deal more, than we do about his danger, there is nothing we can do for him. No, I must sit and think alone. I want to go over what we know. I want to know more. Especially about the people. And about those Peppinger transactions.”

  “Command me,” J.J. said.

  “Yes, I may do that. Please”—he turned to me—“let me make it plain that I honestly do not know. I see no revelations. No glaring clues. You know everything I know. There are only two little thoughts I’ve had that I’ve not expressed. I’ve a reason for not expressing them now. You may have had them yourselves.”

  “Then Uncle Charles …?”

  “I see nothing that proves he is a murderer, Bessie. Nor, unfortunately, do I see absolute proof that he is not. Good night.”

  “You’re not a professor any more, are you?” I asked him, belatedly to be sure. “Are you really a detective now?”