A sense of impending revelation was in Dr. Millard’s heart as he asked, “What does Cullen look like?”
“A little bigger’n me. Brownish hair and beard. Shaggy eyebrows. Don’t remember the color of his eyes.”
“Do you think you could recognize him without his beard?”
Mr. Gifford looked up quickly, a glint of comprehension in his eye. “Might.”
Dr. Millard took a photograph of John Nobody from his pocket, and Mr. Gifford studied it attentively. “Plenty of these in the papers lately,” he said. “Never noticed any resemblance before. Don’t look much like Cullen. But now, wait. In a way it does, too. Never saw the scar, but that would be on account of the beard. Hair looks the same, and forehead. But the eyebrows are different, and the lashes look smaller.” He hesitated. “Hold on, though. I remember Cullen had long lashes, the kind women like. Suppose he trimmed those, his eyes might look different. Same with the eyebrows. Then take away the beard, and yep, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Well, not to swear to.”
“Can you tell me anything about Cullen—the kind of man he is?”
“Maybe. I hear things about people. Best part of this job,” said Mr. Gifford cheerfully. “Cullen. Let’s see. They came down here about six months ago. I met him when he took title to that little place of theirs. Not country folk. He talked real glib. Said he was writing a book, but didn’t say about what. Didn’t strike me as a book writer. More like the kind you see at county fairs, selling stuff. Never got any mail, postman tells me. Couple of times I wondered if they wasn’t hiding out. But I don’t go around making trouble—plenty of that as it is.”
“What did they do for a living?”
“Never could make out. Had a little bank account, but I hear it shrunk away to nothing back a while. Must have been living off capital. Fool thing to do. Cullen told people he’d had a heart attack and had to rest quiet. Looked like it, too. Neighbors tell me about all the exercise he took was when he’d go into the woods and shoot birds. With a rifle, too. That’s dumb. But,” Mr. Gifford added significantly, “I hear he can shoot real good.”
Dr. Millard’s face was haggard. “What sort of woman is Mrs. Cullen?” he asked slowly.
“Looks to me like she might have been a chorus girl back a ways. Not bad looking, but hard. Maybe you’d like to talk to her, Reverend? I’ll be glad to drive you out there.”
Mr. Gifford’s modest car took them over a bumpy road to an area of squalid farms and shabby houses outside the town. They turned in at a small, isolated, and unkempt dwelling, surrounded by a few acres of overgrown land. A big woman, in whom vestiges of blonde beauty showed through untidy hair and slatternly dress, came to the door. At the sight of Dr. Millard she stood suddenly still, her hand at her throat.
“Perhaps,” Dr. Millard murmured apologetically to his companion, “it would be best for me to speak to her alone.”
Mr. Gifford looked disappointed, but he said, “Sure. I’ll wait.”
Dr. Millard approached the motionless woman, in whose face surprise had given way to calculation. “Mrs. Cullen?” he said formally. “My name is Millard. May I talk to you alone, please?”
Silently she stood aside to let him enter.
* * *
—
Mr. Levatt, playing for time, and unwilling to relinquish his witness for cross-examination, was asking Dr. Millard questions designed to embarrass him, rather than to reveal information. In particular, he challenged the minister’s memory of the exact words used by Mr. Gifford. Finally the judge intervened.
“If you care to make a statement using your own words, Dr. Millard, of the information Mrs. Cullen gave you, the court will hear you.”
He waved away Mr. Levatt’s irate protest, and turned his full attention to Dr. Millard.
* * *
—
A radio was chattering as they entered the dingy parlor, and Mrs. Cullen snapped it off. “Have a chair, Reverend,” she said, and cleared a litter of magazines and newspapers from an armchair, ousting a gray cat, which minced out of the room with an indignant mew. Dr. Millard noticed that the woman’s high voice was throaty and blurred, and simultaneously he caught a smell of liquor in the room. She followed his glance to an open whiskey bottle and partially filled glass on a table.
Shrugging, she said, “Like a drink, Reverend? No? Well, you won’t mind if I finish mine.”
“I shall come to the point, Mrs. Cullen,” he said, handing her the photograph of John Nobody. “I have reason to believe that this man is your husband.”
Her blue eyes stared at him stonily. “You’ve got it wrong, Reverend. My husband is away on a trip. I’ve seen this John Nobody’s picture before, and he’s nothing like my husband.”
He frowned. “You have a choice between talking to me or to the police. If they add a beard and heavy eyebrows to the photograph, would you know him then?”
She licked her lips, pretended to look at the picture more closely, and muttered, “You didn’t say anything about a beard. I’m not sure. How can anybody be sure?”
“His name, Mr. Gifford tells me, is Ambrose Cullen.”
“That’s my husband’s name.”
“Mrs. Cullen, you can’t conceal the truth long, and you will be wise to speak it to me. Surely you know I have been a friend to your husband.”
She glanced at him appraisingly. “You mean you’re here to help him? You’re still on his side?”
“I am on the side of the truth,” he said sternly.
She looked dissatisfied. “Suppose it is Amby,” she said carefully, “and mind you, I’m not saying it is. But even if you can prove it’s him, that doesn’t mean he isn’t divinely inspired.”
He was genuinely startled. “But surely it is plain that the shaving off of his beard showed premeditation.”
“The voices might have told him to do that too.”
The last atoms of illusion vanished from his leaden heart. “Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that?”
“Why not? The jury will, anyway. Worst that could happen is that they’ll disagree. They’ll never convict him.” She eyed Dr. Millard defiantly. “Besides, you can’t prove anything.”
“I can telephone to Wicheka and say that I have discovered new evidence,” he said quietly. “Then, the police—”
“The police can’t make a wife give testimony against her husband,” she flashed out. “I know the law. Who you trying to kid? I thought you said you were his friend. You don’t act like it.” She tossed off the remainder of her drink, and raised the bottle, only to find it empty. “And that’s the last one!” she said disgustedly. “What a life. Nothing to drink, only canned stuff to eat, nobody to talk to. I’ll go nuts!” She seemed struck by an idea. “Say, Reverend, since you’re so interested in Amby, how about lending me a little money? I’ll pay it back when, well, soon.”
“I’m sorry,” he said uncertainly.
Her expression became cunning, her voice wheedling. “Now look,” she said. “Maybe we can make a deal. You want to ask me questions. O.K. I’ll answer them—at a price. Say a hundred—no, you preachers don’t have much—fifty bucks. Worth it, isn’t it?”
“Do I understand,” Dr. Millard said thoughtfully, “that you will give truthful answers to my questions for fifty dollars?”
“Why not?” She giggled. “What have I got to lose? My word is as good as yours. You couldn’t prove a thing. Amby saw to that. He’s smart, my Amby. This thing is foolproof. Besides, after what you’ve been saying, Reverend, if you try to turn against him now, you’ll only make yourself a laughingstock. I can’t figure you out, but you’re not that much of a dope. How about the fifty? Cash down.”
Dr. Millard made up his mind. Examining his thin wallet, he replied, “I haven’t that much with me. I can spare twenty-five
.”
She pursed her lips. “Nothing doing.” Suddenly her eyes widened and glistened, and she smiled at him. “I tell you what. You can give me a check for the other twenty-five.”
“How can I be sure,” he asked doubtfully, “that you will tell me the truth?”
“Don’t you trust me?” She giggled. “Give me the check now. Then ask ahead. When I’ve answered, you’ll know I’ve told you the truth, and you give me the other twenty-five in cash. O.K.?”
Dr. Millard nodded, and taking a blank check from his wallet, uncapped his fountain pen and wrote. She seized the check and scrutinized it eagerly. “All right, Reverend, shoot. Wait a minute, though, let me ask you something. What made you come here?”
“The letter you sent to the jail.”
Her face darkened. “I was afraid of that. He told me not to. I shouldn’t have done it.” Anger melted her caution, and the words came out in a torrent. “What could I do? I was broke, and the dirty tightwads in town wouldn’t let me have credit. And the taxes overdue. I wouldn’t put it beyond that Gifford to toss me out on the road.”
It seemed to Dr. Millard that she was asking absolution for having disobeyed her husband. She went on, “I couldn’t think of anything else to do. He wanted me to stay here. The radio said a lot of people were sending him money at the jail, and I figured he might find a way to get a little of it to me. I didn’t know how, but he’s clever. I knew he’d guess what I meant. For a second when you came along I thought maybe he sent you. I still don’t get how you found out. With all the mail he was getting, how could anybody figure anything out from just one word?”
She checked herself, and scowled. “Even if they can prove I sent it, that still wouldn’t mean he knew anything about it. Listen, I’m talking pretty free to you. I don’t know what your game is, but you better not try anything funny. See this check?” A contemptuous smile flickered on her mouth. “One squawk out of you, Reverend, and you know what I’ll say? I’ll say you came here, inquiring about Amby, and when you found I was alone, you started to get gay. I’ll say you knew I was broke, so you offered me the check for my fair white body. Get it? Maybe not everybody will believe me, but plenty will, and you can bet the papers will like it. That would finish you, Mr. Minister. So be smart, and keep your trap shut.”
The genuine horror in his face made her laugh. The cat mewed loudly in the next room, and she called, “Here, pussy, pussy.” It came running to her, sprang into her lap, and began to purr as she caressed it. Relaxing, she continued. “Now that we understand each other, Reverend, I’ll earn that other twenty-five, because I don’t want to part with this check. So ask your questions.”
Grimly, he said, “Why did your husband kill Durgeon?”
“I don’t think he intended to kill him. Just wound him, was the way he had it figured.”
“But why?”
“We were broke, that’s all.”
“But how could shooting Durgeon—”
“You are a dumb bunny, Reverend. But no dumber than the rest. Why, after the trial, they’ll pay him a fortune for newspaper articles, and lectures, and maybe even movies. It can’t miss, the way Amby figured it. We’ll be rich. And nobody could ever prove that’s why he did it. Don’t you get it?”
There was a silence as Dr. Millard considered the enormity of her statement, and the more terrible enormity of her satisfaction. “Surely,” he said at last, “he was taking a great risk.”
“Not so great. Durgeon was a perfect setup, with those lectures of his. People around here are suckers for a stunt like that. Amby said the worst thing that could happen was that they’d call him crazy and put him away for a while. And that wouldn’t be any worse than living in this hole with his bad heart and asthma and nothing to do while we ate up our money. Most women wouldn’t have stood for it.” Tears of self-pity welled up in her eyes. “But I love the little guy.”
“But couldn’t he have made money in some other way, honestly, without murder?”
At the word, her scowl returned. “There were reasons why he didn’t want to—that’s none of your business. Anyway, he had to take it easy. Durgeon deserved to be shot—everybody knows that. Blaspheming God the way he did. Amby’ll be a kind of saint—you wait and see. Once this thing is over, he’ll be rich and famous. We won’t have to worry about the future, or the past either.” She nodded emphatically.
“Wasn’t he afraid of being recognized?”
She sneered: “When he shaved off his beard, and I fixed his eyebrows and eyelashes, I didn’t know him myself. He’s worn different kinds of beards for twenty years, ever since he got that scar, and he never had his fingerprints taken. Nobody saw him going up to Wicheka, either. I drove him myself, at night. Nobody would have recognized him if you hadn’t poked your nose in.”
“When did he first plan to kill Durgeon?”
“Started when he read about Durgeon’s lectures, and said what a joke it would be if he did drop dead while he was defying God. Then he started to think. He said he would be a public benefactor if he killed Durgeon. He’s smart, my Amby. He planned it all out, like a movie—just what people would do, and what he would do. What he would say to the police. Even the tone of voice. I always tell him, he should have been an actor.”
Her tongue and pride were thickening together. “He had everything figured out. How he wouldn’t remember anything, but otherwise be perfectly normal. That way the doctors might say he was faking, but they couldn’t call him crazy. He knew the public would be on his side and get him off. He’s smart. Listen, Rev, when you see him, tell him I’m waiting, will you? Tell him I’m going nuts, but I’m waiting.” With an irritable gesture she brushed the cat from her lap and rose to her feet, staggering a little.
Dr. Millard said, “May God forgive you.”
“Oh, can that stuff!” she flared out. “And don’t think you can walk off without leaving the twenty-five bucks.”
As he handed her the money, she said with a touch of uneasiness, “So now you know all about it, and what good will it do you? You can’t prove anything. If you talk, you’ll only ruin yourself. And don’t forget this.” She waved the check in his face. “If you try to make trouble for Amby, your name will be mud. Dirty mud.” She laughed at him. “Amby will be proud of me.”
Numb in spirit, Dr. Millard heard her out, and went back to the car, where he was joined by Mr. Gifford. As they drove off, the Town Clerk glanced at Dr. Millard’s unhappy profile, and said, “Don’t look so worried, Reverend.” He chuckled. “She might be able to say that one of us was a liar, but not both.”
As his meaning sank in, Dr. Millard turned to him unbelievingly. “You heard her?”
“Well, sure. I wasn’t going to miss out on a juicy thing like that. I would have died of curiosity, sitting in the car. So I just went around the house, and sneaked in the back door. Heard it all. Thought that blamed cat was going to give me away, once, but my luck held.” Mr. Gifford laughed loudly. “She’ll sure be surprised. Makes her a kind of accessory, I guess. My idea is this Cullen must have swindled somebody, and decided to hide out in a quiet place until things cooled off. Something like that, I bet. Well, Reverend, you can just catch Number Sixteen to Wicheka if we step on the gas. You’ll have to stall ’em off at the trial until I get there. I guess this is going to be tough on you, no matter how it goes. But it’ll be jam for me. Yep.” He grinned in anticipation. “I’ll have to pack a bag and tell the wife I’m going, and I’ll be up on the next train.”
* * *
—
Dr. Millard could sense the seething antagonism of the courtroom as he completed his statement. A feeling that they had been duped and cheated rankled in the minds of jury and spectators alike. Resentful eyes turned from the prisoner, his pallid face working endlessly, to the grim witness, and back again. A reporter in the press benches said audibly, “He’s through.” A harsh voice replied,
“They’re both through. Millard gave the people a miracle and now he’s taking it away. They won’t stand for that.”
Mr. Levatt, with a shrug of resignation, relinquished Dr. Millard to the prosecution. The District Attorney said promptly, “Your Honor, I intend to move for an adjournment, pending the arrival of this new witness, Mr. Gifford. But first I should like to say this to you, Dr. Millard, that the state rejects the insinuations of the defense that you have been serving any personal end at any time in this case. If there is anything else you care to add, Doctor, I’m sure the court will be interested in hearing it.”
“Thank you,” replied Dr. Millard, constrainedly. His face looked old and tired. “I must confess that when I came into the courtroom I hoped that there might be some way of avoiding this shock to all the people who sincerely believed, as I believed, in John Nobody. But it was too late. And perhaps it is for the best that the truth comes out in this way.”
“I am sure,” the judge interposed, “that no one can blame you for your part in the case.”
For the first time the emotion within him showed in Dr. Millard’s voice as he said, “Whether they blame me is not important. It is the injury to the faith that matters. To the millions of good men and women in whom bitterness and cynicism will grow when they hear the truth about John Nobody.” He paused, and shook his head. “I have seen much wickedness in my life, but this is the wickedest thing of all. Durgeon, at least, fought religion frankly and openly. Atheist though he was, he spoke out like a man. The evil he did to men’s souls was nothing compared to the evil his murderer has done by practicing upon the desire of men to believe.”
In the prisoner’s box there was sudden tumult, as Ambrose Cullen, alias John Nobody, leaped to his feet and screamed, “Shut up, you meddling old fool! Shut up!” As a guard forced him back, his wax-like face became suffused with blood, and he rattled off a string of obscenities that put the courtroom in an uproar before the guard could silence him with a heavy hand upon his mouth.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 156
