The DEATH OF COLONEL MANN

by Cynthia Peale

  “Halt!” he cried as he raised his pistol to fire.

  “Don't shoot, Doctor,” came Ames's voice. He carried a bright brass telescope that shone even in the dim starlight.

  “I thought—” MacKenzie began; he broke off as he heard Ames's low chuckle.

  “ That I was a burglar? I should have warned you that I sometimes come up here at night to stargaze.”

  He was setting up the instrument on a tripod, tilting it to exactly the right angle, focusing it.

  “It's cold tonight, Doctor,” he said as he worked. “Don't catch your death. And mind your step near the edge—it's a long drop. Sic quoque itur ad astra, as Virgil more or less said—'This way, too, is a passage to the stars.”“

  “I had no idea that you were an astronomer.”

  “Only an amateur. And I have been too busy recently to be even that. But tonight, when I saw that the weather was still clear, I thought this might be my last chance before going away.”

  Ames stood with his eye pressed to the glass. His tall, thin-legged figure looked as storklike as the tall, thin-legged tripod. In rapt silence he gazed up at the stars. Even to the naked eye on this brilliantly clear night, they were quite distinct; MacKenzie saw the Dippers big and small, and Cassiopeia, and the brightest star in the skies this night, the brilliant, blue-white Vega.

  Ames moved the telescope slowly so as to be able to see one bit of sky and then another. At last he turned to Mac—Kenzie.

  “Have a look?” he said.

  MacKenzie stepped forward. When he had looked at the night sky out on the wide open plains of the West, it had seemed, paradoxically, both more vast and yet closer— sometimes almost close enough to touch. Here it looked properly distant—until he put his eye to the lens, when suddenly it sprang into huge proximity. The telescope was directed to Vega, and now, so much closer, it startled him— humbled him—with a brilliance greater than he could have imagined.

  After a moment he stepped back. Ames reset the telescope, looked through the lens, and then again he stood aside to allow the doctor a turn. “The Andromeda nebula,” Ames said. “My friend Mr. Percival Lowell, who is not an amateur but a professional, tells me it is the most distant object that the human eye can see. It lies beyond our universe, if you can conceive of such a thing.”

  MacKenzie looked. He saw a cloud of luminosity dotted with bright pinpoints. He gazed for a few seconds more; then, nearly overwhelmed, he said, “Thank you.” He sincerely meant it. He was grateful to Ames for that brief glimpse of the heavens; more, he was intrigued. Astronomy was, he thought, an essentially romantic field of study, an expression of yearning to know what lay beyond the lonely little planet Earth. Until now, he would not have suspected that Addington Ames had a shred of the romantic in his temperament.

  Ames cast a critical eye over his lodger. “You are shivering,” he said curtly. “You'd best go in. I don't want Dr. Warren to accuse me of causing the death of one of his patients.”

  He was right, of course. And so MacKenzie went indoors, back to his room, where he got into his bed and lay warm and comfortable, drifting off to sleep while he thought of the little drama taking place on the roof—Addington Ames, stargazing.

  THE NEXT MORNING, CAROLINE WAS LETTING HER POR ridge cool while she hurriedly read the morning Globe before she gave it up to her brother.

  “They have your name here again,” she said to him.

  “Why not?” he replied. “It adds a little something to the story, I would think.”

  He said this, MacKenzie knew, not from any sense of self-importance but simply as a statement of fact.

  Caroline, remembering Josephine Putnam's coolness the evening before, made a wry face. “Since you had nothing to do with the Colonel's death, Addington, I would think they'd let you alone.”

  “Why should they? If adding my name to the story helps them to sell papers, then they will add it. They are hardly concerned about my sensibilities—or yours.”

  Shaking her head, she handed the paper to him. “Good morning, Doctor,” she said to MacKenzie.

  He took his porridge and settled himself at the table. The morning sun did not reach this room, but he could see the bright day outside, and he remembered the brilliant night sky he'd briefly seen with Ames, up on the roof. That man— that eager, yearning soul—had been very different from the composed, reticent figure sitting here now. Still waters, thought MacKenzie. The much-anticipated trip to Egypt should have revealed to him Ames's true nature, which ordinarily the man kept so well hidden under his dry, reserved exterior.

  “Such a lovely evening, wasn't it?” Caroline said as he began to eat.

  “Very.”

  “I've never seen such a handsome crop of post-buds. Some of them individually, of course, are always beautiful. The Codman girl, back in 'eighty-five, was quite exquisite. And Aimee Parker's niece, I remember, even though she did have red hair, poor thing. And—”

  She broke off. “Addington,” she said, turning to her brother.

  “Yes?” He did not stop reading, and so she tried again.

  “I have just remembered something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Addington, listen to me.”

  The paper came down; he met her glance. “Yes, Caro. I'm listening.”

  “Do you remember Mr. Hemenway's daughter?”

  He blinked. “No.”

  “Yes, you do. The last time I saw her was at Symphony, four years ago.” Her voice wavered, then strengthened once more. “She was engaged to be married to the Motley boy. And then— Oh, it was too horrible! They said it was an accident, but Ethel Loring told me—and I remember I told you—that it wasn't. Eleanor Hemenway drank chloroform. It could not possibly have been an accident. It happened right after—right after her initials appeared in the Colonel's paper. Her father nearly went mad with grief. He saw Colonel Mann in the street one day not long after and attacked him. Surely you remember that, at least.”

  He nodded slowly as it came back to him. Wisely, the Colonel had not pressed charges.

  Caroline turned to MacKenzie. “Old Mr. Hemenway never recovered from it—from losing his daughter like that, and all for nothing.”

  “You mean the Colonel printed something about her that wasn't true?” MacKenzie said.

  “Oh, who knows if it was true or not! That isn't the point, is it? The point is, is anything the Colonel prints worth a life? She was such a lovely girl. And to die like that—”

  She pressed her lips together as if to contain her outrage. Then: “The point I am trying to make, Addington, is that if you are looking for someone with a reason to kill Colonel Mann, Henry Hemenway is as good a prospect as anyone I can think of. I can't imagine why I didn't think of it sooner. He told Ethel—who is his sister's sister-in-law—that the next time he saw the Colonel he would finish the job. Last summer at Nahant, Ethel told me he is becoming more and more reclusive. He never goes out, just sits at home, brooding. Eleanor was his only child, and apparently he cannot recover from her death.”

  Ames drank his coffee. Then he met his sister's insistent gaze. He nodded. “You are right, Caro. I had forgotten the Hemenway case.”

  “Well, then,” she replied with an air of having settled the matter. “I think you should go to see him.”

  “What, and tear the scabs from a sorrowing old man's wounds?”

  “And ask him—”

  “If he finally managed to murder the man he held responsible for his daughter's death? Really, Caroline, it would be beyond the bounds of good manners—”

  “It is beyond the bounds of good manners to allow Val to suffer the same fate!” she snapped.

  MacKenzie was amazed at her vehemence, and apparently Ames was as well, for now he stretched out a hand to her, patted her arm gently, and said, “You mustn't allow yourself to become too caught up in this affair.”

  “Of course I am caught up in it. How can I not be? You didn't see the way Josephine Putnam behaved last evening. She was just bare
ly civil to me, and she hardly even looked at poor Val. If we do not get those letters back—if this horrible business does not come to an end, and quickly— Val may be driven to—to—”

  “No,” he said softly. “To do what the Hemenway girl did? No. Not Val.”

  “How can you be so sure?” she challenged him. MacKenzie saw that her soft brown eyes were brimming with tears; he longed to comfort her, but he didn't know how.

  “Because Val is like us,” Ames replied. “She may appear to be delicate, but underneath she is one of us, and that means she is strong enough to weather any scandal, no matter how bad it may seem at first.”

  Caroline was not reassured, but she nodded and began to pick at her breakfast. He was trying his best, she thought. Pray he succeeded in the few days remaining before he left the city.

  A SHORT WHILE LATER, AMES AND THE DOCTOR BOARDED the Green Trolley on Charles Street and settled themselves for the ride down Beacon Street along the Public Garden, and around on Arlington to Marlborough. Here, the mansions were not quite so grand as those on Commonwealth, one block over, but they were handsome enough, MacKenzie thought as he gazed at the parallel rows of brick and brownstone town houses.

  They alighted at Fairfield Street; the trolley bell clanged as the horses started up again, heading toward Massachusetts Avenue. A few steps along, and they came to Henry Hemenway's home. Ames had heard that Hemenway had spared no expense when he'd built the house not long after his daughter's birth, but now the place looked poorly kept. A ragged vine climbed the front, the brownstone was chipping, and the brass door knocker was badly in need of a polish.

  He lifted it and brought it down sharply. No answer. He tried again. MacKenzie, waiting beside him on the doorstep, grimaced in the raw east wind; despite the fine day, that wind, coming in off the sea, foretold a change.

  The door cracked open and a maid peered out at them suspiciously. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Hemenway, please,” said Ames, proffering his card.

  The maid ignored it. “I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Hemenway is not at home.”

  She started to shut the door, but Ames put a hand against the panel. “It is important. Is he in?”

  She hesitated. Then, grudgingly, “I'll see.”

  Ames thrust his card at her again. “Take this to him. We need only a moment of his time.”

  Glancing up, MacKenzie thought he saw a blind move at a window on the second floor. After a few moments, the maid returned and they were admitted.

  The house had an air about it of not being lived in. Ames looked around, but there was not much to see. All the doors leading off the foyer were closed; only one dim gas jet lightened the gloom.

  The maid led them upstairs to an equally gloomy hall, where she knocked and showed them into a room with book-lined walls and a massive desk. Over the mantel was a portrait of a beautiful young woman. From a chair by the unlit fire, an old man was getting up to greet them. In the light of the gas jets on the wall, MacKenzie could see that he was rather stooped, with long white hair and a beard that needed trimming.

  Ames held out his hand, and after a moment the old man took it.

  “Mr. Hemenway,” Ames said. “It is very good of you to see us.” He introduced MacKenzie, who was surprised at the strength of Hemenway's handshake.

  “Well, what is it, Mr. Ames?” Hemenway said gruffly. He did not ask them to sit.

  “It is about a most painful matter,” Ames began.

  Hemenway stared at him, unflinching, but his mouth worked.

  “About—the death of Colonel Mann,” Ames said.

  “It said in the newspaper that you found him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you do it?”

  “No. But I did have business with him that I was unable to transact.” Briefly, Ames told his story while Hemenway listened impassively.

  “And how do you think I can help you?” Hemenway asked when Ames had finished.

  “I don't know. But I thought perhaps you might have visited him—”

  “You mean you thought I might have killed him at last, as I have publicly threatened to do?”

  Ames shrugged.

  “Well, sir,” Hemenway said, “I did not.”

  “Did you see him on Monday evening?”

  “No.”

  Ames waited until Hemenway burst out, “All right! Yes, I did go to him then.”

  “At what time?”

  “Not long after eight.”

  “And—?”

  “He was dead. Someone had done my work for me.”

  “May I ask—did you have a reason for going to see the Colonel on that particular night?”

  Hemenway hesitated, blinking his rheumy old eyes. “Monday was the fourth anniversary of my daughter's death.”

  “I see.”

  “I wonder if you do.”

  “Well, then, quite possibly I do not. But if you will allow me—did you see anyone while you were there?”

  “No. Just a couple of guests in the hall going to their rooms.” Hemenway shook his head. “I didn't kill him, Mr. Ames. I wish I had.”

  And now at last his grief overcame him. His face crumpled and his shoulders shook as a sob wrenched from his throat. He put his hands over his eyes; after a long moment he took them away again.

  Ames felt acutely uncomfortable. In his world—his small, proper, neatly ordered world—men did not weep, and if they did, they did so in private.

  Hemenway took a deep breath. “I apologize, gentlemen. You understand—Colonel Mann robbed me of all that was precious to me. He dirtied the name of my daughter and drove her to her death.” He glanced up at the portrait, then quickly looked away. “You can see for yourselves what she was. And that man— Well. He has been a cancer on the body—and the soul—of this city for years. I am not going to pretend to be shocked—or even saddened—that at last someone has done what I should have done long ago. I tell you again, I did not kill him. But now that I have told you I visited him on the evening when someone did, I must assume the police will learn that fact also.”

  “Not from me,” Ames said.

  “But from someone, yes? And so now I will set about getting myself a believable account of where I might have been at that time. It would be ironic, would it not, if in his death the Colonel managed to injure me yet again?”

  Ames was disposed to believe Hemenway when he said that he had not killed Colonel Mann. Still, Hemenway's guilt or innocence was not the issue, or not for him, at any rate. The issue, he reminded himself, was Val's letters.

  “When you were in the Colonel's suite, Mr. Hemenway, did you by any chance see the packet of letters I need to recover?”

  “No.”

  “I know he had them at four o'clock. When I went to see him at a quarter to nine, he was lying dead on the floor and the letters were missing. For lack of any more plausible theory, I believe that the person who killed him took them.”

  “To continue the Colonel's blackmail?”

  “Possibly. Probably, in fact.”

  Hemenway shook his head. “I can't help you, Mr. Ames. I wish I could—to strike one last blow against that—that— devil!”

  “You are positive you didn't see such a packet?”

  “Yes. But then again, I wasn't looking for 'em, was I?”

  Ames thought of the missing galley. “Did you take anything away with you?”

  Hemenway hesitated. Then: “I saw his proof sheets lying on his desk. I thought of all the grief they held—and would cause if the wrong person got hold of them.”

  “So you took them?”

  “Yes. I burned them”—he gestured at the fireplace— “there. Will his paper come out this week?”

  “I don't know.”

  “The world has one less scoundrel in it now, Mr. Ames, and I hope one day to shake the hand of the man who removed him from our midst. Do I shock you?”

  Ames shook his head. “No, sir, I cannot say that you do.” He held out his hand again. “I thank you for you
r time, sir. It was not my intention to open old wounds.”

  “They've never been closed, Mr. Ames.”

  SHE WAS THERE WHEN YOU CAME HOME FROM THE COTIL lion?” Caroline asked.

  “Yes. She saw me to bed.” Val was pale, on edge.

  “So sometime between then and the morning—”

  “Yes.”

  Val's maid had vanished.

  “But why?” Caroline asked. “It is not as if she was unhappy with you.”

  “No. She seemed happy enough.”

  “Oh!” Caroline clapped her hand to her mouth. But it was no use; the thought had come to her, and she had to voice it. “Do you think it was she who took your letters?”

  “I suppose so.” Val's eyes were bleak as she struggled with this betrayal.

  “And gave—or sold—them to the Colonel? Or”—and this was the most difficult proposition of all—“did someone else know about them and bribe her to take them?”

  Val stared at her. “How could anyone have known? I never told a soul.”

  They heard the thump of the dumbwaiter in the back passage, and Caroline went to fetch the tray. Cook had given them not only tea, but a few slices of bread and a dish of butter. Good. Val had probably had no breakfast; she needed this little nourishment.

  She poured. When Val did not take any food, she buttered a slice of bread and handed it to her. Val looked at it for a moment as if she didn't know what to do with it; then she accepted it and began to eat.

  After a moment, her eye fell on the book lying on the table beside Caroline's chair.

  “Is that the new Diana Strangeways?”

  “Yes.” It was one of the few little luxuries Caroline allowed herself: the purchase, each October, of the annual offering by England's premier lady novelist, whose sensational tales of love and adventure enthralled readers on both sides of the Atlantic. “I'll give it to you when I've finished,” Caroline added, knowing that Val understood “give” to mean only “lend.” Ordinarily she did not lend books, having discovered long ago that many people did not feel constrained to return them; but Val was different. She always brought them back promptly, and always in good condition.