by Gorman, Ed
We were led through the dining room with its long oak banquet table — no doubt the gloried one — into a large kitchen, immaculate and well-organized.
I sized up the space. “So, this is where Mrs. Browley and her guests were when her husband appeared at the window?”
“It is, indeed,” the cook said.
“And you were here, as well?”
“Yes. I was finishing my clean-up when Mrs. Browley burst in with the others. She was coming to raid the icebox ... as she sometimes does.” Obviously, the woman did not approve of such frolics in her realm. “Then, almost immediately, Mr. Browley was spotted at the window by Mr. Durker, the actor. He was the only one close enough.”
Mr. O’Nelligan moved to the one window that looked out onto the front lawn. “This one, yes? But tell me, Mrs. Leroy, it seems that at night it would have been hard to truly see anything outside.”
“There’s an outdoor light that was on then. Also, the moon was just a couple days shy of full. It was actually quite illuminated out there. And Mr. Durker’s face was only inches from the glass.”
“I see,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “Had Mr. Durker imbibed much at that point in time?”
“As it turns out, Mr. Durker is a teetotaler. Quite rare, I imagine, for those Hollywood people. So, he wasn’t impaired, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Very good. Now, I believe Mr. Browley tapped his sword on the pane. Did you hear him?”
“No. It was terribly noisy in here. Mrs. Browley and her guests were rather...” The cook made a diplomatic choice, “Rambunctious.”
“I see,” said Mr. O’Nelligan. “And where was everyone situated at that moment?”
“Well, I myself was bustling about dispensing food, and the others were all clustered around the table there.”
Given the room’s layout, it seemed unlikely that someone at the kitchen table would have had a view of anything out the window.
“And Tom Durker?”
“As I’ve said, Mr. O’Nelligan, he was over near the window, right where you’re standing now. He told us he saw Mr. Browley just outside, but Mr. Browley had already darted off.”
“Though no one else can verify that.”
“No, but Mr. Durker seems like an honest man. I can’t say I care much for his motion pictures — too much gunplay and fistfighting — but the man appears trustworthy.”
“And what do you base that on?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked.
The cook gave a little shrug. “Just the cut of the man, I suppose.”
“Ah, I understand you, madam,” said Mr. O’Nelligan, gazing out the window. “Sometimes one just knows the worth of a being. Back in County Kerry, I had a neighbor who could judge a cow’s milk capacity just by pinching its ear. Downright infallible he was, don’t ask me how.”
A phone rang in another room. Mrs. Leroy excused herself and left to answer it.
I turned to my cohort. “I have to agree with the police. It had to be an outsider. Everyone from the house is accounted for during the time of the attack, right here making merry. By the way, good job working your Irish wiles with the cook lady. Not a bad-looking woman, really, in a severe sort of way. I believe you noticed.”
The old widower blushed so vividly that I regretted my ribbing. “Enough with your nonsense. Now, back to the facts. Yes, it does seem to be a closed equation. But since your client feels differently, I think we owe it to her to proceed in our inquiries.”
The cook returned. “Mrs. Browley phoned to say she’s running a little late. Feel free to explore the grounds if you wish.”
“We were hoping to see the Roost,” I said.
“When you step outside, it’s a little walk over the hill. You’ll have to wait for Mrs. Browley, though, if you want to get inside. There’s only one set of keys and she has them. It used to be that Mr. Brow-ley kept them on his person at all times, but now...”
According to Handleman’s notes, those keys were found in Browley’s pocket after his death, the assumption being that the thieves never possessed them and had, instead, somehow picked the locks.
“Have you been in the Roost much yourself, Mrs. Leroy?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked.
“Heavens, no. It was Mr. Browley’s special place. He had it built when he bought the place three years ago. I don’t think that even Mrs. Browley has been inside more than a few times.”
“What do you suppose he did there?” I asked.
“He slept there at night,” the cook said. “Not when guests were staying over, during his glory tables, but all the other evenings.”
That grabbed my attention. “How do you know this?”
“Because I’m always here. I have my own little room just off the kitchen. I’d see him go out and return in the morning.”
“So he didn’t sleep with his wife most nights. Is that how it was back in New York, as well? I mean, were there matrimonial concerns?”
Her voice tightened. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know. I don’t bother with what others do in their privacy.”
Mr. O’Nelligan caught me by the arm, like a stage manager giving the hook to a failing vaudevillian. “We’ll go explore now,” he said. “Thank you, Mrs. Leroy, you’ve been kind beyond belief. When Mrs. Browley returns, have her bring us down the keys, will you?” He bustled me out of the house.
“What’s our hurry?” I asked.
“I’m saving you from a thrashing! Didn’t you see the fire in the woman’s eyes? After all, you’re probing the bed chamber of those who pay her wages.” Mr. O’Nelligan was clearly displeased with me.
“But I’m obtaining useful information. And, did you notice, I never once brought out my notebook.”
“Yes, admirable restraint on that front. But, listen, lad, when you go brandishing about terms like ‘matrimonial concerns’ you’re likely to rile up proper folks. That wasn’t a showgirl you were talking to back there.”
I had to laugh. “You’re coming off a bit prudish, Mr. O’Nelligan.”
“Propriety and prudishness are two different beasts, I assure you. Now, in regard to the Browleys sleeping separately, it may not signify much. I knew an old farmer named Finnerty who slept in his barn while his wife kept to the house. He swore it wasn’t out of animosity, but kindness, for he snored like a freight train. They were married sixty-odd years and still held hands when strolling.”
A several-minute walk brought us in sight of the Roost. It proved to be an unusual building, round and made of stone, with several barred windows, one facing in the direction of the main house. As we came up to the small citadel, a tall figure in a long dark coat and fedora appeared from behind it. For a fleeting, illogical moment, I imagined it to be Clarence Browley himself, returned to the scene of his death.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to jump out at you.” He was a young man with a good face, if you discounted the somewhat flattened nose. “The train station’s not far from here, and I decided to walk. I’m David Pobenski.”
“Polecat.” The word leapt to my lips.
His smile had a touch of sadness to it. “Sure. At least, I used to be Polecat.” He held up his left hand to display three of the fingers curled in upon themselves. “Not much call for a one-fisted boxer. A few months back, I severed a couple tendons on a table saw. Pretty stupid of me. I was making a gift for my nephew, and ended up trading the Olympics for a wooden toy truck.”
I told him who we were and that we’d like to ask him a few things.
“That’s why I came up,” he said. “But I have to be honest with you, I think Nina’s just grasping at straws. I mean, I know this thing has thrown her for a loop, but the police called it a robbery, and that’s seems to fit the bill.”
“A second look never hurts,” I said. “Can you tell us your view of that night?”
“Sure. I got to the house by about seven. I was the last to arrive. Paige and the Browleys had come up the night before, and Tom Durker and Captain Sands had made it in about an hour before me.”
“Together?”<
br />
“Yeah. Sands had picked Durker up at New York International and flown him the rest of the way in his own plane. We all hung out for a while, had cocktails and sat down to dinner around nine thirty.”
“You three were all members of Clarence Browley’s glory table, were you not?’” Mr. O’Nelligan asked.
Pobenski grinned. “You make it sound like an official club, with rules and uniforms. It was more like Clarence surrounding himself with sports guys and adventurers and such.”
“No other purpose?”
“He just enjoyed having people like that around, to hear their stories and live a little through them, I guess.”
“You were a frequent guest at these gatherings?” I asked.
“I guess I was in the rotation. Captain Sands, too. I think for Tom Durker, that was his first time. Anyway, it was a long dinner, and afterwards we sort of scattered through the house. I ended up in the living room, playing cards with Nina and Paige.”
I snuck out my notebook for an inoffensive jot or two. “How long did you play for?”
“Maybe forty-five minutes. At one point, Clarence stopped in looking for his dog, and he seemed upset. The dog wasn’t there, so Clarence hurried off down the hallway. We heard the front door slam.”
“And this was at 11:40, yes?”
“Sounds right. After Clarence left, we played some more. Then, just when the midnight clock chimed, Nina tossed all the cards in the air and said we should go on a food raid. She rounded up everybody and headed to the kitchen.”
“But you didn’t join them immediately?”
“I’d stopped to pick up the cards off the floor. I’m told I got there about five minutes after they did.”
“So you weren’t in the kitchen when Browley was seen at the window?”
“No, but people were talking about it. Tom Durker said Clarence was acting strange, that he hopped away when Tom saw him. A little after I got to the kitchen, Nina went out to find Clarence. Then we heard her scream for help, and all three of us guys ran outside. Paige, too. When we got to the Roost, Clarence was bloodied up, already dead, and Nina was holding him in her arms. Right there.” Pobenski pointed to the earth just before the door. “It wasn’t a nice thing to see.”
“So here he expired,” Mr. O’Nelligan said as we gazed down at the spot. “There is always something somber about a place where the soul has fled the body.”
He closed his eyes and I noticed his lips slightly moving. It took me a moment to realize that he was reciting a prayer.
Six
“Hello!” a voice called from up the hill. We turned to see Paige Simmons approaching us.
“Nina sent me down with the keys. She can’t bear to come near this building anymore.” Paige passed me a ring of keys, then extended her hand to Pobenski, who accepted it with a shy smile. “Good to see you again, David.”
After a bit of figuring, I managed to undo the three door locks. If robbers had indeed picked their way in, they must have done it skillfully, for none of the locks seemed damaged.
I pulled open the heavy oak door, and we stepped inside. The room was sparsely furnished: a single bed, night stand, table and chair. All basic, all oak. A burgundy rug covered the floor. The curved walls, also paneled in oak, contained two paintings, one of a medieval battlefield, the other of a man with a knife fighting a tiger. A kind of bolted metal bracket, slightly bent, was positioned just above the bed.
Pobenski pointed to this last feature. “That must be where the shield used to be.”
“So you knew about the shield?” I asked.
“No. I mean, I only heard about it after Clarence was dead.”
“I knew about the shield,” Paige said. “Nina told me about it once. Clarence had it specially made and edged with real rubies and emeralds. He brought it with him to whichever of his three homes he was staying at. I think he considered it some kind of power thing.”
“Power thing?” I asked.
“Perhaps like a totem,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “A sacred object such as your American Indians kept.”
“Could be,” Paige said. “Clarence certainly had an inclination towards old weapons. I think he fancied himself a kind of knight.”
“A knight of stocks and bonds,” Mr. O’Nelligan mused. “Were either of you aware that Mr. Browley slept here on those nights when he was not hosting his glory tables?” What? Hadn’t the old nagger just reprimanded me for that very line of inquiry?
As Pobenski shook his head, Paige said, “Yes, I knew. He spent most of his evenings here whenever he was in Greenley. Clarence had a solitary side to him.”
“In addition,” Mr. O’Nelligan noted, “he might have been reluctant to leave such a valuable object as the shield unwatched at night, even in a locked building. Though, of course, on those nights when he slept in the house, there would have been no one here to see to its safekeeping.”
“But on those nights he’d always release his guard dog,” Paige said. “Right at midnight like clockwork. I was at quite a few of the glory tables, and that’s what always happened. Clarence had trained Ajax to stay right around the Roost.”
I led the others back outside and relocked the door.
“‘At midnight like clockwork...’” Mr. O’Nelligan repeated the line. “But on the night of his death, Clarence Browley summoned Ajax, albeit unsuccessfully, at around 11:40, a good twenty minutes before midnight. This was not the norm, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t,” the young woman agreed. “But, remember, Clarence seemed tense when he left the house. Something was wrong.”
“Maybe he saw the robbers down here,” Pobenski said.
Paige shook her head. “That couldn’t be. You can’t see the Roost from the house.” We looked up towards the hill. Only the peak of the house was visible.
Pobenski retrieved a travel bag from next to the stone building. “I’d like to say hello to Nina. You know, I haven’t seen her since that weekend.”
We made our way back towards the house and found Nina Browley seated on a stool in a small side garden. A few last rugged flowers held their color against the coming autumn, and Nina studied them as if in a deep meditation. At our approach, her head jolted up and her eyes narrowed.
“David,” she said flatly.
“Hello, Nina.” Pobenski made no effort to move closer to her. “Just caught the train up.”
“Thank you for coming. Have you been talking with Mr. Plunkett?”
“He has,” I said. “He’s been very obliging.”
Several long moments passed before Nina spoke again. “Paige, perhaps you can run David down to the inn. I had Mrs. Leroy call ahead to book him a room. Unless you’ve already made accommodations, David?”
“I haven’t, well, that is...” the young boxer fumbled. “I wasn’t sure where...”
“I’m sure you’ll have a pleasant stay there,” Nina said. “And you’ll be close to Mr. Plunkett if he needs to further interview you.”
With nods of farewell, Pobenski and Paige headed off. In a minute, we heard the rumble of a car winding down the driveway. Mr. O’Nelligan pulled over an empty stool and sat close to Nina, all but knee to knee. As they spoke together quietly, almost intimately, I took it as my part to just stand aside and listen.
“It seems to pain you to see that young gentleman,” Mr. O’Nelligan said.
Nina continued to appraise the flowers. “Not just him. Any of those men. When I talked to them on the phone, to ask them to come up, it somehow felt different. But now, seeing David here...”
“Yes?”
“One of them killed Clarence. Vicious! Such a vicious thing. If you had seen all the blood...”
“Of course, Mrs. Browley, of course. It must have been staggering.”
“I have to tell you, Mr. O’Nelligan, I’ve never been a very good wife. I like to cast myself around and make everything a party. I like men. But as Clarence was dying and our eyes locked together, it felt almost like the day we married. I kno
w that’s bizarre to say, but it was like making a vow. A vow that I’d find out who did that to him. And even though I’d failed Clarence in life, maybe I wouldn’t fail him now.” Her voice broke. “But I have been failing him, same as always.”
Mr. O’Nelligan patted her shoulder. “You have not, madam. You brought us in to take up the hunt, didn’t you? It shows grand wisdom to know when one must summon aid.”
“I hope so,” Nina said almost inaudibly.
“You know, when my Eileen passed away, I took it powerful hard.” Mr. O’Nelligan turned his own eyes to the fading garden. “Like yours, my heart was weighed down by all the kindnesses I had left undone, all the gentle words I might have bestowed upon that good woman, but somehow never made the time to.” After a brief pause, he half-spoke, half-sung a verse,
“In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.”
“Byron?” Nina guessed.
“Yeats,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “Or, more accurately, an old peasant woman of Sligo, who Yeats once heard singing in the street. From a few lines, imperfectly remembered, he carved out a whole splendid poem. It just goes to show that there is gold to be found in the humblest places.” He stood. “Like in our battered hearts.”
Nina looked up at him. “You’re a good little Irishman.”
“Exactly!” said Mr. O’Nelligan.
• • •
As we drove to our meeting with Captain Sands, I wondered aloud if we shouldn’t have spent more time at the Browley home.
“We can always return there,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “I think we did well in treading lightly with the woman.”
It was Mr. O’Nelligan, and not I, who had done all the light treading. I had to admit, the old eccentric had the common touch.
“We’re doing well, Lee. Thus far, we have made contact with all the principals of the case, excepting our Western star, Mr. Durker.”
“Who’s unfortunately on a whole other coast,” I said. “So, tell me, from the trio of male guests that night, how many do you imagine Nina Browley slept with?”
