The Cheshire Cat's Eye

by Marcia Muller

  “You’d broken off? Quarreled?”

  She picked at an imaginary piece of lint on her black dress. “Not a quarrel. We had differences.”

  “About?”

  “When a man grows old, often he becomes foolish.”

  “And how did Richard Wintringham express this foolishness?”

  She looked solemnly at me for a long moment. “Charmaine.”

  “Was he in love with her?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say love.” She gestured helplessly. “It was more of an infatuation. He knew he couldn’t have her, so instead he tried to run her life. He made the poor girl miserable. He got her a job at the firm he deemed suitable and was always calling her employer to check on her progress. He insisted she take the apartment he found for her. He tried to rule her romantic life. It was a great price to pay for an education.”

  “And you fought with him over it?”

  “Not fought. I advised. He listened and did what he wanted anyway.” Van Dyne’s eyes were far away, on the model of Richard Wintringham’s mansion. “He was a fool, and a hard man to get along with. But he was also a good man. He’d merely come to live more and more in the past, when men could rule all they touched.”

  “So you broke with him over Charmaine?”

  “I saw less of him, for a while. But then he had a heart attack and needed someone to look after him. I was in and out of there that whole spring, supervising his servants, seeing that he had the little things he needed.”

  “Which spring was that?”

  Van Dyne directed her oddly innocent eyes at me. “Why, the spring he died. It was a lovely spring; we’d never seen better. The days were warm and clear; the whole city was sunshine and pastels. The lilacs bloomed in Richard’s yard; their smell was everywhere. The loveliness was such a contrast to what was happening there on Steiner Street. It made everything seem all the more terrible.”

  ‘What things?”

  “Richard was ill, of course. He looked gray and weak. I knew he hadn’t much more time left. And David had returned from New York with Paul Collins and stashed him in that little Stick where Larry French was killed tonight. Richard was desperately trying to match Charmaine up with David – I guess he had decided if he couldn’t have her, his son should.”

  “Didn’t he realize David was gay?”

  “Not immediately. When he did, he was livid. I was afraid he would have another heart attack. Poor Richard.” She shook her head. “Nothing was going his way. There he was, trying to arrange a marriage for his son, and all the time David was in love with another man and Charmaine was in love with Prince Albert.”

  “Prince Albert? There’s nothing between them now, is there?”

  “Oh, no, dear. That was over long ago. For their romance to have withstood the dominance of Richard Wintringham it would have taken more devotion than either of them felt.”

  I stared at van Dyne, the turned my gaze to the dollhouse. It seemed peopled with miniature figures; the old man in his tower study, trying to rule lives; van Dyne running in and out with little gifts for the invalid; David and Charmaine, meeting in the parlor and then going off, he to his lover down the street, and she to Prince Albert’s Lighthouse.

  The figures breathed, moved, and spoke within the confines of the dollhouse. And then they vanished one by one as the pieces of my case fell together.

  24.

  The pieces were still falling into place as I drove home to my apartment on Guerrero Street. The trouble was, they weren’t falling fast enough.

  I sat down at my desk, ignoring Watney’s plea for food, tapping my fingers on the base of the phone and staring at the Cheshire Cat’s Eye.

  Three murders. The initial one, three years ago. What motive? I’d have to find the killer and ask him.

  A second murder, last Friday night. Jake Kauffmann had gotten too close to the truth. He’d confronted the killer with a replica of the lamp. Fear of disclosure had caused Jake’s death. Death by the hand of someone who was “usually tanked up.”

  Tanked up. But none of my suspects was a drunk. Tanked up…

  Then the third murder, this evening. Larry French had seen a chance to profit from what he’d discovered over the last two days. The pressed-glass bottle in the fireplace, where it had originally been hidden, was a show-business-like pressure tactic. But it had backfired because French had underestimated his victim.

  Why? Because the murderer was likely to be drunk.

  The killings were getting closer together. Certainly now the killer could be pushed to a fourth murder – or to a confession. Didn’t drunks tell the truth more often than not?

  Tanked up. What if…

  I sat up straighter, my fingers clutching the phone.

  Of course. What if I’d misheard Jake? He was upset, not speaking clearly. Of course.

  I snatched up the phone and tried to call Greg. The lieutenant was interrogating a suspect and could not take calls. I asked for Gallagher. The inspector had left. I hung up and glared across the room at the Tiffany lamp.

  “We’ll have to handle this alone, you and I,” I told it. Glancing at my watch, I picked up the receiver again and called Charlie Cornish at his apartment over the new shop. He answered, sounding weary.

  “Charlie,” I said, “do you know where I can get some kerosene?”

  “You do ask the damndest things. What do you want it for?”

  “To fuel a lamp.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause. “Some gas stations sell it, in fifty-gallon drums.’

  “Well, I certainly don’t need that much!”

  “You don’t have to buy the whole drum, dummy. Still, I’d be hard pressed to tell you which station to try, and even if I could, they might not be open this late. Wait a second.”

  I heard the receiver clunk down and Charlie’s footsteps shuffling away. It was several minutes before they returned.

  “Just like I thought,” he said. “Austin had some downstairs. He was testing out some old lamps he picked up at an auction. You’re welcome to it.”

  “Great! I’ll be right over.”

  I loaded the Cheshire Cat’s Eye in my car, checked the gun in my purse, and headed for Valencia Street. Charlie met me on the sidewalk and handed the container of kerosene through the car window.

  “You be careful with that stuff,” he cautioned. “I don’t want you burned.”

  “I’ll take care. Thanks, Charlie.”

  “Yeah. Come back in one piece so you can fill me in on your shenanigans.” As I drove off, I could see him in the rear-view mirror, still standing on the sidewalk, waving.

  No police cars were in evidence at Steiner Street. When the San Francisco police finished with a crime scene, they finished fast. Still, I parked a block away and crept through the shadows, lugging the lamp and kerosene. The windows of the Victorians were dark. All the better for my purposes.

  There was a police seal on the front door of the Queen Anne, and the lock looked sturdy. I set my burdens down and glanced around. Often old sash windows didn’t work properly. I tested the one next to the porch and, sure enough, it wobbled up unevenly in its frame. Thrusting the lamp and kerosene before me, I entered the front parlor. I closed the window and crouched below it, listening. There was no sound except for a car on the side street.

  Pulling my flashlight from my purse, I made my way to the stairs and up to the tower room that had been Richard Wintringham’s study, and his death place. Briefly, I shined the light around. The room was rectangle, bowing out at the tower corner. The curved glass of its three windows was undraped. There were no furnishings, save for a few packing cases containing books. They would make an excellent table. I dragged them directly into the tower, then set the lamp on them and began to fill it, the way David Wintringham had shown me that afternoon.

  Some of the kerosene spilled on my fingers, and the lamp filled slowly. I prayed I was doing it right. Finally I set the container down and extracted matches from my bag. The first three didn’t w
ork, but on the fourth it caught.

  The lamp flared into brightness. I gasped at the rich reds and golds and greens. The cat’s eye gleamed, and the teeth grinned conspiratorially at me. At last, they seemed to say, justice will be done.

  Or would it? Would the killer see the light and come to investigate? How long would it take?

  I crossed to the far side of the rectangle and crouched deep in the shadows, my back to the wall, my hand on my gun. It was cold in the tower. I had a knot in my stomach, and my limbs tingled with anticipation.

  To calm myself, I began to sort through the facts.

  An old man, who had tried to dominate everyone whose life had touched his, had died violently here. Why?

  Because he’d tried to run one life too many.

  Someone had tried to cover up the crime by faking a burglary, and had been successful for quite a while. Until when?

  Until the stolen objects were discovered by a workman and sold to a junk shop. From which they were recovered. And reproduced.

  Causing a second person to die.

  And a third.

  They had all died by the hand of the person who had so carefully placed those objects in the fireplace and walled it up again. Who?

  A meticulous person, who liked order.

  A person with money, susceptible to French’s blackmail.

  A person who, three years ago, had had access to that room with the fireplace.

  Footsteps sounded below. I released the safety on my gun.

  The steps came up the stairs, along the hall. They paused outside the door.

  The killer stood in the shadows of the hallway, breathing hard.

  I said, “Come all the way into the room, Paul.”

  25.

  Paul Collins stepped through the door. His moonlike face was white in the glow from the lamp. I remained in the shadows, by the high-mantled fireplace.

  “Who’s there?” He shielded his eyes from the glare and groped toward the lamp.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Who’s there?” Collins repeated. “I saw the light and came to investigate. Whose lamp is that?”

  I moved between him and the door. “You can drop the act, Paul. You know whose it is.”

  He whirled around and peered into the gloom. “Sharon, is that you? What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you to revisit the scene of your first crime.”

  “I don’t understand.” Pinpointing me by the sound of my voice, he took a step forward.

  “Stay right there, Paul. I know you killed them, Paul.”

  “Killed who? Me, kill someone? Who?”

  “Start with Richard Wintringham. He liked to dominate people. He all but wrecked Charmaine’s life. He ruined Prince Albert’s romance with her. I imagine he made David’s life hell. For all her sentimentality, I’ll bet he gave Eleanor van Dyne a lot of unhappiness too. I suspect even Jake Kaufmann suffered at his hands.”

  “Well, he wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, but…”

  “Yes, and all those people admit it. And they say that Richard Wintringham was furious when he found out about David and you. It made me wonder why you would say you liked him, that he was a nice man. I guess you figured it wouldn’t do to bad-mouth your murder victim. It might have made someone suspicious.”

  Collins was silent.

  “What did he say to you that night, Paul? Did he order you to stop seeing David?”

  Again Collins took a step forward.

  “Hold it,” I cautioned.

  “Oh, there you are.” His eyes had adjusted to the dark. “Why don’t we go back to the house and talk about this over a cup of tea?”

  “No.” I raised my gun higher.

  Collins stared. “Sharon, that isn’t necessary!”

  “What happened in this room that night, Paul?”

  He licked his lips, eyes on the gun, and took several steps backward, into the tower.

  I raised the gun still higher. “What happened, I asked.”

  Collins glanced around frantically.

  “There’s no way out, Paul.”

  His plump body sagged. He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet. “You want to know what happened?” he asked brokenly. “He offered me money. Money to leave David alone. I told him I had my own money, that I couldn’t be bought. He said he’d disinherit David. I knew how much these houses meant to David, even then he had plans to renovate this block.”

  “So you killed his father.”

  He retreated further into the tower. The glow of the Cheshire Cat’s Eye touched his face. “First I tried to talk to him, to explain how I was good for David. He said… said no… faggot could possibly be good for his son.” Collins closed his eyes. There were tears on his cheeks. “That’s when I killed him. I’ve always had trouble with my temper; I take tranquilizers to control it. But that night, tranquilizers weren’t enough.”

  Yes, tranquilizers. He got “tranqued up,” like Jake had said. Not tanked, but tranqued. I felt a stab of pity for Collins but, like his tranquilizers that night, it wasn’t enough. I said, “So you took the things in order to simulate a burglary and hid them in the fireplace at your apartment.”

  “Yes. It was easy, the sheetrock was already loose. If I had gotten rid of them, they might have been found, and then the police would have realized it wasn’t a burglary. And I couldn’t sell them; I might have been remembered and identified. As long as I lived in that apartment, they were safe. After I moved in with David, I was in terror that they’d be found and I kept meaning to go back for them, but…”

  “When did you find out they were no longer in the fireplace?”

  “Three or four months ago. I kept waiting for them to turn up, but they never did.”

  “Until Jake Kaufmann came to you with the replica of the Cheshire Cat’s Eye he’d borrowed from Prince Albert. Did he try to blackmail you?”

  Collins turned to look at the lamp. “Jake wouldn’t have done that. He called for David and said he thought he knew who had the things that had been taken when Mr. Wintringham died. He said he needed to make sure, because it would implicate a good friend.”

  “Prince Albert. You took this call?”

  Collins nodded, still staring at the lamp. “I told Jake that it would upset David too much to talk about it, but that I’d be willing to identify it. I suggested we meet here, in Mr. Wintringham’s old house, because it might jog my memory.”

  “Surely your memory didn’t need jogging.”

  Collins was silent.

  “You planned to kill him, didn’t you?”

  “No!” He whirled to face me. “This was merely a place where David wasn’t likely to come. That’s all!”

  Nice, how after three murders he could still delude himself. “Jake was convinced the lamp was a replica of the Cheshire Cat’s Eye, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. He’d only seen it once or twice, but when he brought the replica here, it jogged his memory. He insisted on taking it to the police. I couldn’t risk that. We went downstairs, and I told him there was something I needed from the dining room. The hammer was on the mantel…”

  “Why’d you fake the accident the way you did? I would think you’d know more about construction than that.”

  Collins hung his head. “I didn’t. It was Larry. He admitted as much tonight. He saw me leave, although he didn’t recognize me in the dark, and went in to see if everything was all right. When he saw Jake, he panicked, thinking what a murder could do to the project. He faked the accident, not me.”

  And when that hadn’t worked, he’d turned to Raymond-the-Hit-Man. “Larry also found the replica of the lamp, didn’t he? It got broken in your struggle with Jake.”

  “Yes.” Once again he looked over at the Cheshire Cat’s Eye, as if mesmerized by its deep colors. “I should have taken it with me, but I just ran. Larry took it home and, when he heard you and David talking about it, he connected it with the stuff he’d given the workman and traced it.
Then he fit everything together.”

  “And arranged to meet you in the fireplace room in order to blackmail you. The bottle on the hearth was pretty heavy-handed drama.”

  “Maybe so, but Larry was a dramatic person. It was his way of telling me he knew everything, and it scared me half to death. Then he said he wanted all of my inheritance, the money David and I live on. I couldn’t…”