By Hook or By Crook

by Gorman, Ed

  “Come now! Must you wallow in coarse words?’

  “What words would you want me to use?”

  “Well, dalliance, for one. You could have referred to her dalliances.”

  “For God’s sake, just yesterday you advised me to twitch like a rock-and-roller, and now you’re badgering me with your Celtic decorum. You’ve got me reeling.”

  “Life’s not always a steady deck,” Mr. O’Nelligan counseled. “In answer to your crudely wrought question, it could be that any, all, or none of those three men have known Nina Browley’s affections. But if one had, it might well have led to conflict between that man and Mr. Browley.”

  “Perhaps a fatal conflict,” I added. “But the piece that confuses me is why would Browley have kept beckoning males to his home if he knew of his wife’s appetites.”

  “Perchance he was blithely unaware. Or, conversely, he might have been very aware, but chose not to let that derail his dinner gatherings. Seen in that light, his uncustomary sleeping in the main house during those nights might have been to ensure his wife’s fidelity. Or, yet another theory, he might have been that particular brand of man who takes pleasure in his wife’s unfaithfulness.”

  Now it was I who was a little shocked. “A cuckold by choice?”

  “Merely one explanation. Another being that Browley preferred the company of men, in the style of Oscar Wilde, and that he cared little if his wife strayed — as long as it wasn’t under his own roof. These are cosmopolitan people we’re dealing with, and we must be cosmopolitan in our speculations.”

  “Cosmopolitan, but not coarse. Got it.”

  My companion chuckled. “Now you’re learning, Lee Plunkett! We’ll have you finely polished in no time.”

  Seven

  I had no idea that an hour later I’d be plunging through the wild blue yonder. Struggling to control my heaving stomach, I gripped the cockpit of Captain Sands’ plane and made every effort to blaspheme our pilot. Unfortunately, no words could free themselves from my gritted teeth.

  As it turned out, the little yellow building where we rendezvoused stood on the edge of a landing field where Sands’ Apache twin-engined aircraft waited to deliver us skyward. This, then, was what Sands meant when he stated that he would only talk to us on his terms. Soon after we were in the air, he began amusing himself by putting us through a series of sharp swoops and spins. If these maneuvers were meant to separate the men from the boys, well, then I was more than willing to trade in my trousers for knee britches and call it a day. From behind me, Mr. O’Nelligan, who seemed less affected by these acrobatics, came to my defense. “Captain Sands!” He raised his voice over the din of the plane. “You’ve put Mr. Plunkett in some distress. Please ease up.”

  “Just trying to give you gentlemen a little excitement.”

  “So we see,” Mr. O’Nelligan said. “But a murder case is all the excitement we presently require.”

  Sands leveled the plane, and my heart dislodged itself from my throat.

  I turned on the smug aviator. “What the hell do you — ”

  “Ah, Captain.” Mr. O’Nelligan jumped in to avert a fracas. “I see you are an admirer of President Eisenhower.” He had taken note of the half dozen I Like Ike pins that ornamented the cockpit.

  “Sure am. No question he’ll win reelection come November.” Sands smiled to himself. “The way I see it, it was pretty much Ike and I who beat the Nazis.”

  Just how conceited was this guy? Wanting to hasten our time together, I got down to business. “What happened the night Clarence Browley died?”

  “I’ll make it short and sweet. I picked up Tom Durker in New York and flew him here. I’d been at a few of Browley’s dinners before, but it was Durker’s first time.”

  “But you knew Durker?”

  “Never met him before. I just flew him up as a favor to the Browleys. So, we get to the house. Drinks. Talk. Polecat shows up at some point. More drinks. Eat. After dinner, I end up with Browley and Durker in the den shooting the bull. Durker’s telling about some picture where he portrayed an Indian scout. Browley says, hey, he has a genuine Comanche war lance up in the attic, so he goes to fetch it.”

  “There’s an attic?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked.

  “Apparently. Durker and I wait in the den. After a few minutes, we hear Browley calling for the dog. I step out in the hall and see Browley just as he’s opening the front door. Seems he gave up on the war lance, but he grabs a sword, a rapier, out of the umbrella stand — there were always weapons just lying about — and he heads outside. I go back and joke to Durker that Browley has a blade and is probably off hunting dragons. Anyway, that’s the last time I saw Clarence Browley alive.”

  I asked Sands about Browley.

  “Clarence wasn’t too bad. Hail-well-met sort, though somewhat strange.”

  “How so?”

  “Tried a little too hard to impress. Made a bunch of cash fairly quickly and wanted to be a big man and flaunt things around. Like the swords and spears. And like that shield of his. Never saw it myself, but I heard about it. On the other hand, he kept his cards pretty close to the vest. I didn’t really know what to make of him.”

  “And Mrs. Browley?” I asked. “What do you think of her?”

  He adjusted something on the control panel before answering. “Nice lady,” was all he said.

  We began our descent and soon found ourselves again on terra firma, which did my mind and body much good.

  After we’d all climbed out of the plane, Sands gave us an ingenuous grin. “Pleasant flying with you both. Hope you track down whoever used Browley’s head for batting practice.”

  Mr. O’Nelligan stepped close to the pilot. “Captain, a man has been slain. Your flippancy is out of line.”

  Sands pulled off his flying gloves, his smile still fixed. “No offense meant. But I’ve been in war, you see. Death is a different creature when you’ve been in war.”

  “I’ve been in war,” Mr. O’Nelligan said, a mix of fierceness and pain in his eyes. “Terrible war. And I tell you, a butchered man is a dark thing to behold.”

  Not waiting for a response, my friend turned abruptly and walked away. I followed.

  • • •

  Our drive back was conducted in near silence due to my post-flight queasiness and Mr. O’Nelligan’s pensiveness. I wondered to what black field of memory his thoughts had summoned him. On returning to the inn, Mr. O’Nelligan opted for a late lunch with Moby Dick, while I went up to our room to lie down, just for a minute, to allow my innards to settle.

  When I awoke, I discovered I’d been asleep for almost two hours; I vowed right there and then to remain earthbound for the rest of my natural days. I went downstairs in search of Mr. O’Nelligan. The desk clerk passed me a note that had been left not long before. It read:

  Dear Lee,

  Gone for a little stroll to respire and reflect. Meet me at the Browley house after sunset.

  Yours, O’N

  I calculated that the walk from the inn to the house would take him a good two and a half hours. A little stroll? Well, more power to the man. I made some inquiries and found that Sands had been checked out since morning, but that Pobenski still had a room, right across from mine as it turned out.

  Deciding I’d track him down later, I seated myself in the empty dining room and ordered black coffee. Normally, I took mine well sugared and glutted with cream, but at this moment I needed something more Spartan. Black and neat is the way Buster Plunkett always liked it, and if I possessed even a drop of his sleuthing blood, maybe unvarnished java would help bring it to the surface. I pulled out my notebook — with no O’Nelligans in sight to chastise me — and reviewed what I’d written down. Yes, a number of possibly pertinent facts had been logged, but none strong enough to pierce that impenetrable quarter hour of murder where all suspects dwelt together in cheerful innocence.

  The tangle of potential dalliances did seem worth unraveling. Was Nina’s unease at seeing Pobenski based pur
ely on her general suspicion of the guests, or did a history exist between those two that caused shame? Was Sands’ description of Nina as simply “a nice lady” just a little too terse to take at face value? And what about our unseen cowpoke, Tom Durker? True, we could always place a call to Hollywood, but that seemed a poor substitute for going face-to-face. Finally, at the heart of the mystery, stood the quirky Clarence Brow-ley, hoarder of swords and shields, who slept in a stone circle and surrounded himself with valorous men.

  I spent half an hour mulling things over, then pocketed my notes and ordered an early dinner. Later, as I stood in the lobby, David Pobenski entered from outside.

  “Mr. Plunkett. Oh, right...” He seemed distracted.

  “Mr. Pobenski, I was hoping to talk some more, but I’m expected now at the Browley home. Later then?”

  “Fine,” he said softly. “I’ll be here if you want me.”

  “Thanks.” As I reached out to shake his hand, I was thinking that he seemed too gentle for a man so skilled at pummeling others. But as he gripped me with his right hand, the undamaged one, it felt like my knuckles would splinter. The guy was made of granite.

  Eight

  Daylight had just quit the sky when I pulled up to the house. This time it was Paige who answered the door, looking more tired than she had earlier. She led me inside to a small den where Nina sat intently watching television.

  “I do love Lucy,” Nina said without looking up. “But do you know who I love even more? Fred Mertz! His voice reminds one of rumbling thunder, and he possesses a certain gruff sex appeal.”

  I had absolutely nothing to offer on the subject of Fred’s virility. “I’m looking for Mr. O’Nelligan.”

  “Check in the kitchen,” Nina instructed, then let out a wild laugh in appreciation of Lucy’s latest high jinks. She never once glanced my way.

  Paige and I stepped back out into the hall.

  “You never know which Nina you’ll get, do you?” the young woman said, a note of apology in her voice. “That’s just her nature.”

  “You’re a faithful friend to her, it seems.”

  “I try. She’s always been very good to me. Always introducing me to nice people...” She trailed off.

  I left her and made my way to the kitchen. Hesitating in the doorway, I stood for a while unobserved and watched my dignified old Irishman brazenly flirt with the cook.

  “Ah, Mrs. Leroy,” he said. “A woman who can produce a fine chicken cordon bleu is worthy of all praise. Mrs. Browley is lucky to have someone like yourself who respects French cuisine — which I myself hold in high esteem. Even, I must admit, beyond my own Irish cuisine.”

  “Irish?” Mrs. Leroy, who had been pounding chicken cutlets, paused and gave a wry smile. “Irish cuisine amounts to little more than boiled cabbage and a splash of whiskey.”

  “Madam!” Mr. O’Nelligan feigned outrage. “You overlook the potato.” There was a glint in his eye that I’d have preferred to miss.

  “French is good,” the cook said simply and firmly. “It’s the food of passion and the language of love.”

  Dear God, this was going too far. I was about to break things up with a theatric cough, when Mr. O’Nelligan reached across the kitchen counter for a waylaid slice of ham. Down slammed Mrs. Leroy’s meat pounder the merest inch from Mr. O’Nelligan’s fingers. “None of that,” she said coquettishly. “This isn’t a buffet.”

  At this point, the Irish Lothario noticed me. “Oh, Lee. Yes, well...” Thrown by my presence, he took a deep breath to compose himself. “Come. I have a task for us.”

  He moved past me, and as I turned to follow, I swapped glances with Mrs. Leroy. Her face hardened and she resumed her pounding. Clearly, she was none too pleased with me for interrupting their tête-à-tête.

  Through a circuitous route that he must have scouted out earlier, Mr. O’Nelligan led me upwards into a low, peaked attic. He switched on a light to reveal a clutter of boxes, trunks, and old chairs, as well as several swords leaning in a corner. But what stood out most was a full-sized suit of armor, missing one arm. As I examined this wounded knight, I felt a jab in my back and spun about to face my companion, a long feathered spear in his hands.

  “It’s as Captain Sands told us,” he said. “A Comanche war lance in the attic. Now, look out that little window behind you. What do you see?”

  I peered through the darkness to make out a round structure just beyond the hill. “The Roost...”

  “Exactly! We were told that it couldn’t be seen from the house, and that’s true — except from this one vantage point. When we were standing at the Roost earlier today, we could see the top of the house. Remember? I didn’t perceive a window from that distance, but once Sands mentioned an attic, I guessed there might be one.”

  “So, Browley came up to get the lance, happened to glance out the window, and saw what? Even with a full moon, it would be pretty hard to see anything at night from up here. Unless someone below turned on the light in the Roost.”

  “Or was wielding an electric torch. You have one in your automobile, I believe.”

  “A flashlight? Yeah.”

  “Then retrieve it, if you will.” Mr. O’Nelligan reached into his pocket and handed me a familiar set of keys. “I asked Mrs. Browley for these. Now, go position yourself in the Roost and flick on the wall switch. Then, after a bit, turn it off and use only your flashlight. We’ll conduct ourselves a little experiment.”

  Minutes later, I had stationed myself inside the stone outbuilding and flipped on the light. As instructed, I soon turned it off and switched on my flashlight. I played the yellow beam around the room, pausing on the metal brace from which Clarence Browley’s shield of power had been torn. Next, I lingered on the man wrestling the tiger, then on the medieval battlefield. After some time, I doused my light and stood there in the pitch blackness, which felt cold and clingy like a strange second skin.

  I thought of ghosts. The unavenged ghost of the man who had been murdered just outside this door. The ghosts of fallen warriors, real men from real wars, not the romanticized figures on Browley’s walls. I thought of the ghosts of Mr. O’Nelligan’s youth — men he himself had perhaps killed in his own faraway war. And I thought of the ghost of my father, whose legacy now rested in my untested hands. In deep darkness, ghosts are easy to assemble and I was surely finding them all.

  The door opened abruptly, shrilly, and a spectral form filled the threshold. I fumbled to turn on my flashlight, then aimed its beam forward to discover Mr. O’Nelligan.

  “Our experiment worked,” he said.

  “How did you find your way here in the dark?”

  “As a boy, I worked with a gamekeeper who taught me the trick. It’s all about trusting your feet. As I say, our experiment worked. From the attic, I perceived a light in this window here, the one facing the house.”

  “When I flicked the wall switch on?”

  “Yes, but this I expected. More telling is the fact that even when you used only your flashlight, I could still tell someone was down here. Fainter light, of course, but still visible from the attic.”

  “So, Browley saw somebody in the Roost and came out to face them.”

  “And, alas, never returned...”

  • • •

  When we returned to the inn later that evening, Mr. O’Nelligan went to petition the night clerk for an after-hours cup of tea. Wishing him success, I headed upstairs. As I approached my door, a pairof small shiny objects on the carpet caught my eye. They lay directly below the doorknob of the opposite room, the one belonging to David Pobenski. I bent and retrieved them. For a very long time, I stood there transfixed by the two gleaming stones nestled in my palm. Unless I was mistaken, the green one was an emerald; the red one, a ruby.

  Nine

  They had Pobenski in custody by midnight.

  As soon as I could pull my eyes away from the gems, I’d showed them to Mr. O’Nelligan, then phoned Handleman. The jumbo detective had rushed over with a numb
er of policemen and promptly entered Pobenski’s room. The boxer was absent, but another emerald and another ruby were discovered in his nightstand drawer. A protracted hunt eventually found Pobenski perched on a stool in a downtown bar, sloppy drunk.

  We didn’t learn of this last piece until the next morning, when Handleman showed up again at the inn to loom above our breakfast table and gloat. He bragged about Pobenski’s arrest, adding that he’d just phoned Nina Browley to tell her everything was wrapped up.

  “We’re sitting pretty,” he said. “It’s like I explained it to you. Sooner or later, the thief screws up and I’m there waiting to reel him in.”

  Mr. O’Nelligan lowered his teacup. “Was it not, in fact, Mr. Plunkett here who discovered the evidence?”

  “Dumb luck. Not that I don’t appreciate his ability to step on jewelry.” Handleman chuckled nastily. “The truth is, Pobenski’s probably been feeling the heat from my investigation for a while. He gets nervous, gets careless, and makes a bonehead mistake like dropping the rocks outside his door. No question they came from Browley’s shield. That links poor little Polecat to the robbery and therefore to the murder. Case closed.”

  “But what about the timeline?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked. “David Pobenski was only unaccounted for during a five-minute interval. How could he have made his way to the Roost, conferred the death blows, purloined the shield and returned calmly to rejoin the others — all within five minutes?”

  “The guy’s an Olympic-class athlete,” said Handleman. “He’s young, he’s strong, he’s fast. That’s how he does it.”

  “But in your earlier notes, you argued that such a feat was implausible.”

  Handleman snarled. “Listen, Shamrock, I said case goddamned closed. Now, if it’s the money you two are worried about, I’m sure the Browley woman will settle up nicely for whatever hours you’ve clocked. But, face it, you’re done here. Hang out for another day, just on the off chance I have any follow-up questions, then hit the ol’ highway.” He snagged a piece of bacon off my plate and popped it into his big mouth. “Enjoy your meal, boys.”