Skeleton Key

by Lenore Glen Offord

  He was back beside her. “Come on, Mrs. Wyeth, turn your head and take a sip of this.”

  She smelled alcohol. “Where’d you find that sherry?” she murmured dizzily. “There wasn’t much left…”

  “Drink it,” Nelsing’s deep voice commanded her. “It’ll do you good. Too bad you haven’t any brandy.”

  “Go on talking,” Georgine said, managing to rise on her elbow and drink a little of the sherry. It wasn’t much good, but it warmed that icy place in her chest. “What were you j-jabbering about, number one and number two?”

  “The types of murderer-character,” McKinnon said.

  “He’s got theories,” Nelsing observed.

  “No sneering for the duration, if you please,” McKinnon requested as lightly as ever. Then his voice took on once more the tone of a lecturer fascinated with his subject. “As every murder investigation develops, it reveals a pattern; and that pattern is caused by the character of the murderer. There are approximately seven types. Number One, the Standpatter; Number Two, the Perfect Murderer—you can spot him,” McKinnon interrupted himself with a ghostly chuckle, “because he’s thought it out so cleverly that he usually forgets some simple li’le point and trips himself up. Number Three, the Repeater. Repeaters come under two heads: the sort who kill for money, over and over, get themselves made beneficiaries of insurance and then get to work with the poison or what not; and the sort who kill for ritual or with a kind of sadistic pleasure. Most of them want to be on the spot to see the victims die, and all of them, peculiarly enough, choose victims who are alike, who belong to the same, uh, ancient profession, for example. But in this case,” the pacing feet came to a stop, “I don’t believe we’ve got a Repeater, because there’s no connection between you and Hollister in anybody’s wildest moments of imagination, including mine.”

  “He thinks there is,” said Georgine vengefully, opening her eyes to look at Nelsing. His expression did not change. Todd McKinnon lifted her upright and put a pillow behind her. “There,” he said. “Feeling better? Want me to go on while you finish your drink? Well, there’s Number Four, the Nervous Murderer. We’ll come to him in a minute. Number Five, the Damn Fool. He leaves a trail a yard wide, all the evidence pointing to himself, but just the same he’ll deny his guilt up and down. Once in a long while you’ll find one like that who just happens to be innocent.”

  He strolled up and down, his hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket. He seemed completely immersed in his own theories, but he was watching Georgine narrowly if covertly. “Number Six you might call Policeman’s Li’le Helper. He’s frank and cheerful and comes round to the police with theories and evidence that’ll point to somebody else, or mix ’em up. They’re supposed to overlook him, because he’s so coöperative. Of course,” continued Mr. McKinnon smoothly, “I don’t count political assassins, nor hopheads. The homicidal maniac is out too.”

  “Huh,” Nelsing said, almost snorting. He was sitting quietly, patiently, on the hard seat beside the fireplace, his arms tightly folded across his chest. His grave eyes watched McKinnon, occasionally shifting to Georgine.

  “Out for fiction purposes, I mean,” said Mr. McKinnon, gently reproachful. “There’s only one type of maniac I can recognize, and that’s Number Seven; the sort of person who’s not mad on the surface, but hides a twisted mind under a perfectly normal appearance. With that type again, there’s usually some sort of plan or obsession, traceable through the pattern; and again, I’ll be damned if I can think of any similarity between a virtuous young housewife who’s doing a li’le typing on the side, and a retired detective.”

  “A hired thief,” said Georgine bluntly, without thinking. Nelsing opened his mouth as if to stop her, but McKinnon was in ahead of him. “Thief?” he said, struck with a kind of holy joy. “Whose house was he going to burgle? No, wait; I think I know. The Professor’s, because the old boy was lured away for the evening. Right?”

  “Near enough,” Nelsing grunted.

  “Okay, so there’s even less connection.” He swept on. “But the Nervous Murderer, Number Four; there’s my pal. He leaves his mark as plain as an oily fingerprint; as soon as he begins to act in character, the pattern shows it. He’s the standpatter gone wrong. He can’t let well enough alone, he tries to escape or to go back and clean up evidence—or he’s so nervous that he takes a crack at a possible witness. And damn it if this bird doesn’t look like that type. You agree with me, Nelsing?”

  “Maybe,’” Nelsing said. “Well, are you through with your little bedtime story? Then—if you’re feeling quite recovered, Mrs. Wyeth, may we discuss the solid evidence?”

  “I guess so,” Georgine said. She had been considerably revived by the sherry and the even, impersonal flow of McKinnon’s voice had given her mind a chance at adjustment. He said now, “I haven’t a cigarette on me. Will you give her one, Nelse?”

  “All right, Uncle,” said the Inspector a trifle grimly, lighting the cigarette for Georgine. McKinnon, having seemingly arranged things to his liking, retired to a corner and sat down with his knees crossed. Absently he took his mouth-organ from his pocket and tapped it silently on the palm of his hand.

  Howard Nelsing pulled up a straight chair and sat facing Georgine. “Is there something else you know, Mrs. Wyeth, that you haven’t told me?”

  Georgine opened her mouth, and found she wasn’t quite ready for the inquisition. The blue eyes were looking right through her again, and the rugged face was implacable. “Must we go on,” she said irrelevantly, “using Mr. and Mrs.? Or Inspector? After all, you gentlemen have been throwing me around the front yard and taking my stockings off. Can’t we use something less formal?”

  “Any way you like. Now, tell me, please. Is there any suspicion, any evidence, that you’ve been holding back?”

  She took a deep breath. “On my word, there isn’t.”

  “Something you forgot?”

  “Not anything I can remember now! Except—” She shot a glance toward the corner.

  “Claris told him about the rendezvous, after I’d talked to her a bit more,” McKinnon said.

  “Oh. Well, then, that’s all. N-Nelse, you remember I came to you that first day, with everything—not only the evidence about Hollister, but all the stuff I’d imagined or suspected, too. The business about the house-searching and the grave—well, you know why I didn’t mention those. Otherwise I didn’t hold out on a thing. That’d be foolish, wouldn’t it, when all I wanted was to help? I don’t suppose you’ve thought of me as—what did he call it?—the Policeman’s Little Helper who’s a murderer on the side.”

  Nelsing said, “Let’s go over this from the beginning. I telephoned you at seven-thirty. When I got here you were waiting on the sidewalk. Presumably nobody knew you were going out, until that moment. You told no one? Right. We got up to Grettry Road, and as I remember, you said something about your landlords being at the movies until midnight. You said it aloud, in the open street.”

  “There wasn’t anyone in sight. Well, yes; Mr. Devlin at the top of the road—but he couldn’t have heard what we said, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. He was there, listening, was he? Throughout our conversation?”

  Georgine nodded.

  “It’s a possibility. There’s another, though; and I was a crashing fool not to think of it and investigate. There might have been someone behind that thick hedge.”

  “All the neighbors,” Georgine said slowly, “have been in there picking flowers, at one time or another.”

  “So,” Nelsing said. “Well, I should have looked; but it was all innocent stuff, we’d been over it before, and I had no idea the talk would be dangerous. Whoever was there had plenty of time to get down here in the dusk, and go up the outside stair to that balcony, and rig up a trap. It needn’t have been a man, any more than it had to be a man driving the car that ran down Hollister; but I’ll say he for convenience. He heard something, in that conversation of ours, that made him feel you had dangerous
potentialities as a witness. That’s one idea. Let’s work on it.”

  “Go ahead,” said Georgine. “But I can’t think—”

  “You figured out for us how far those footsteps had gone. I asked you if you’d recognized them.”

  “And I said I couldn’t.”

  “Think again, uh, Georgine. Was there anything peculiar about them? The tempo, the length of a stride? A limp or hesitation?”

  “I couldn’t tell you to save me.”

  From his corner, Todd McKinnon spoke. “That’s nothing to kill a witness for. Even if she’d identified them, that wouldn’t mean anything in a court of law.”

  “Shut up, Mac, I know that. But suppose the murderer didn’t?”

  “You mean somebody’s going to throw flowerpots at me because I very firmly said I did not recognize footsteps? I don’t believe it.”

  “Very well, we’ll leave it. We’ll go on. We talked about fingerprints; nothing there to alarm anyone. Then you said you thought there was another sound, after the footsteps. You couldn’t remember what it was at the moment. Have you remembered since?”

  “No.”

  “Will you try to think of it now?”

  She tried, while the room held itself still, while the two men looked at her; Nelsing as if to hypnotize her into recollection, McKinnon with an air of rigid suspense. Finally she spread her hands helplessly. “If it was anything, it won’t come back to me. It couldn’t have been important, Nelse; it must have been something like a barking dog, or an owl. It didn’t make any impression of—unnaturalness.”

  “Well,” Nelsing said heavily, “that wouldn’t be cause for trying to kill you.”

  “Are you sure,” McKinnon observed, “that the flowerpot business was meant for Georgine?”

  “Who else?” Nelsing said.

  “I just wondered—are you holding out yourself, Nelse? Have you dug up something that you didn’t recognize as important? Go back over your own conversation.”

  “That won’t do,” said Georgine, entering into the spirit of research, “because nobody knew he’d be bringing me home. I didn’t know it myself.”

  “Yes, you did,” said Howard Nelsing almost under his breath.

  “Why, no. All you said was, someone would pick me up.”

  “You knew, just the same.” It might have been wrenched from him. For a minute their eyes held; then Georgine sank back, looking beyond him, her lower lip softly folding over the upper.

  “All right. Skip it.” His teeth shut together with a click. “It boils down to this, that you know something that’s dangerous, somebody feels you must be put out of the way before you betray him. What is it you know?”

  “Shall we go round again?” said Georgine testily.

  “Will you promise me something?” He leaned forward until their knees were almost touching. “Will you try to remember what it was you heard? It’s important. I’ve a feeling that it’s what I need. Will you try?”

  “No, I won’t,” said Georgine.

  Nelsing pushed back his chair and got up, slowly. “What do you mean?”

  She looked up at him, towering almost to the ceiling of the small room, his gray-clad shoulders outlined against the brown and cream of the walls, his face angry. Her heart began a dull thumping rhythm; but this had to be said. “I mean I won’t help you if it means making a target of myself. It was bad enough tonight, having the Professor accuse me of that nonsense; and he didn’t try to kill me, he couldn’t have rigged up that flowerpot because we were with him every minute. But if there’s a murderer listening to everything I say, and possibly planning to take another crack at me, I want him to know that I’m no menace to his safety!”

  “You’d—deliberately conceal evidence?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve given you all I had, and if I could remember now what I heard I’d tell you like a shot. But. I won’t spend a week trying to remember.”

  “Just how are the various suspects to know that?” Nelsing’s eyes had turned bleak.

  “Todd’s going to tell them,” said Georgine, glancing at the motionless figure in the corner. “Everyone talks to him. He’s going to let drop the fact that I’ve—as the detectives say, I’ve withdrawn from the case.”

  “I can’t let you,’ said Nelsing harshly. “You hold the key, can’t you see that?”

  “I don’t care if I hold a whole bunch of keys. I’m through.”

  “That flowerpot business,” said McKinnon’s voice languidly, “was a long shot. Ten to one, I’d put it. Anyone who pushed at the gate was almost sure to hear the thing scraping, and look up, and jump out of the way. May have been meant just to scare you out, Georgine.”

  “If it was, it worked perfectly. I’m good and scared!”

  There was a silence. Nelsing gazed incredulously down at her, and McKinnon raised the mouth-organ to his lips and blew through it. One faint chord sounded.

  Howard Nelsing spoke, at last. “Scared out,” he said bitterly. “Rather let justice go to pot than take a nickel’s worth of risk!”

  “Is that how you rate it?” Once more Georgine looked up at him, “Now you listen to me for a minute. Have you thought about Barby? She’s seven years old. Her father died five months before she was born, and for two years I fought for every minute of her life. She’s just begun to get well since we came down here to a low altitude. If I take risks, and go round making myself into fine material for a second murder, and if I do get killed, who’s going to take care of her? She hasn’t anyone in the world but me, except some second cousins of my father; and where do you think they were the last I heard of ’em? In Java.”

  Her eyes had gathered light and intensity until they seemed to give out sapphire sparks. She got to her feet and stood facing Nelsing. “I can’t help what you think of me. This attack tonight has changed everything. I don’t give a hoot for justice! You can catch your murderer or let him loose, I don’t care. It won’t be through me. Todd, isn’t it safer this way?”

  “Can’t help agreeing with you,” said McKinnon.

  Nelsing’s dark brows drew together. He looked from one to the other, and made a contemptuous sound in his throat. “Sounds like the way the isolationists talked, before the war,” he said, “Save your own skin and let everyone else’s go. Lock yourself in your own tight little house and never come out!”

  “That’s just what I intend to do,” said Georgine.

  “And,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “plenty of those characters turned out to be fifth columnists.” He took a step that brought him close to Georgine and looked down into her face. “You did know I’d be here tonight. I picked you up from the sidewalk: you didn’t touch that gate until we came home; you begged me to come in with you…”

  With a wrenching effort she controlled herself. “You’d better go home. Haven’t you forgotten some of those grand police manners?”

  Without another word he snatched up his hat and stalked out the door. She flung a sentence after him. “Thanks for saving my life!”

  Nelsing looked over his shoulder, and the corner of his mouth twitched up. It said as plainly as words, “I doubt you were worth the trouble.” Then he was gone, and the front door closed with ominous gentleness.

  Georgine spun on her heel. Only Todd McKinnon was left, and on him she directed the full blaze of her fury.

  “That fool, that idiot! And you’re just as bad, you babble those crazy theories and act like a harmless screwball, and in the middle of it you slip in a suggestion that someone was trying to kill Nelsing! He’d never have thought of it without you! What does either of you mean, accusing me of—of—”

  “Steady on,” said Mr. McKinnon, rising in a leisurely manner. “Nobody’s accusing you. That was a slip of the tongue on my part. I meant Mr. X, not you.”

  “All right, all right! Fine time to say so! And he’s gone away thinking—thinking I don’t know what! You act as if I’d wanted to be in this affair. All I want is to do my job and earn what I’ve been paid for it
and get out!”

  The hard-textured face remained completely unmoved. Todd McKinnon stood looking at her without expression, and after a moment she stopped and drew her palms vigorously across her face. “I’m sorry,” she said more quietly. “Temper’s my besetting sin, and you’ve been treated to too many displays since we met.”

  “I don’t mind,” McKinnon said. “Easy to see why you get mad; it’s your substitute for whining, or collapsing in tears. Besides,” he added with a faint smile, “it makes your eyes bluer. Very becoming.”

  Georgine glared at him. “There are times when I detest men. Always thinking up the worst motives—I knew Howard Nelsing despised women, but to have you—”

  “I like ’em,” said McKinnon peaceably. “I’m very, very fond of women.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” said Georgine, lashing out in all directions. “Claris Frey seems to think of you as a great beau, and I’ve no doubt that Mrs. Gillespie—”

  “I like them,” he continued unperturbed, “because I’ve had ’em around me a lot. No, not the five wives; my four sisters. Why shouldn’t I like them?”

  “Go home,” Georgine said. “Do for heaven’s sake go home.”

  “I don’t want to leave you here alone,” he said bluntly.

  “I’ll be considerably better off that way!”

  He was standing half turned away from her. He said something under his breath; it sounded like “Damnation.” Then Todd McKinnon swung round, took Georgine in a hard embrace and kissed her soundly.

  For a moment sheer surprise held her quiet in his arms. There was time for her senses to register what had once been familiar and sweet, and had almost been forgotten since young Jim Wyeth died; warmth, and the scent and texture of male skin, and the sharp prickle of close-clipped hair; nothing more.

  Nothing more. She stood back, breathless and half laughing, and he let her go at once. “Well!” Georgine said, and let her hand slide to his and pat it, briefly, gratefully. “That’s a new way to cure hysteria, but it worked. Did they teach you that in the Warden Service?”