The Judas Cat

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “What time?”

  “Say, from six o’clock on.”

  “I had my supper. Five-thirty that was. Then I went across to the Baldwins’. She’s been selling chances on my quilt, and working tomorrow, she won’t be at the party.”

  Waterman interrupted. “Did you notice Andy before you left?”

  “He was on the porch when I went out.”

  “The cat was with him?”

  “On his lap, it was.”

  “Did he speak to you?”

  “Just said ‘good evening.’”

  “But he didn’t act worried?”

  “No.” Waterman nodded to her to go on. “Well I must have stayed there till nine o’clock maybe. It was dark when I came home. There was a light in his house but the blinds were down.”

  Again Waterman interrupted. “All the blinds?”

  “All them on my side of the house,” she said. “And he didn’t generally pull them down. Well, like I say, I came home at nine. There was light in the front of the house and in the dining room. I just didn’t pay any attention to it. I sewed for a while. Fixed myself a cup of Ovaltine about ten and went to bed. I always aim to be in bed asleep by ten-thirty.”

  ”Were the lights still on in Andy’s place?”

  “They were. He stayed up all hours. Even when I woke up at two-thirty, like I told Alex, I didn’t think much about them still being on.”

  “What woke you up then?”

  “I’ve no idea. No idea at all. I sleep sound.”

  “Were the same lights on?”

  Mabel waited a few seconds before she answered. “No,” she said slowly, “the dining room light was out.”

  “Were the blinds still down?”

  “No they weren’t,” she said thoughtfully. “The dining room blind was up. I could see the light from the front room shining through on the floor.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No.”

  “No movement in the house at all?”

  “No.”

  “How long were you watching?”

  “I wasn’t watching, Fred Waterman. I was just looking. I just took a book and went back to bed.”

  “Did you go right to sleep?”

  “Practically.”

  Waterman got up from the steps and stood beside her. “Did you get a good look at the cat in the window yesterday, Mabel?”

  “I saw it, if that’s what you mean. Walking up and down. Up and down.”

  “Would you say for sure it was his cat?”

  She looked at him, her eyes growing wider. She sucked her lips in close to her teeth, and when she spoke again, her voice was small and unsteady. “I just took for granted it was his cat,” she said. “It looked like his cat.” She cleared her throat. She was trying to control her voice, just as she was trying to control her hands tightening them around the handle of the mop stick.

  Waterman’s voice droned on evenly, unperturbed, as though he had not noticed her uneasiness. “Would you have any reason to think now it might not have been his cat?”

  “No.”

  “Mabel, didn’t you ever hear of Andy Mattson before he came to live here, from your brother, Mike?”

  “No.”

  “Mike’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Many years.”

  “And in the years since they moved from here, and his daughter moved back you ain’t spoken to her?”

  “She don’t speak to me,” Mabel said. “And that’s none of your business, Fred Waterman. I don’t have to be persecuted like this.”

  “It’s funny,” Waterman said as though he was merely thinking aloud, “Alex taking that cat to him for an examination, and your connection with them.”

  “I got no connection with them,” Mabel said. “Never.”

  “You didn’t like Mike’s wife much either, as I recollect.”

  “I don’t see as that’s your business.” She wanted to go indoors and leave him, but she was afraid to trust her legs.

  Waterman didn’t like doing this. It was hard to see the old lady growing old almost before his eyes. “No I guess it ain’t much,” he said. “There was two children, wasn’t there? The boy was older as I remember him. Never around much. … Well, I guess that’s about all for now, Mabel. You’re sure now there ain’t some information you’d like to give me of your own accord?”

  The perspiration had come out on her upper lip. “I just want to be left alone,” she said. “I’m going to call Mayor Altman. A person’s got some rights.”

  “He’d be a good man for you, ma’m. He ain’t trying to help me none either.”

  Chapter 21

  WATERMAN DROVE DIRECTLY TO Riverdale when he left Mabel’s. Later he wished that he had stayed at home, and saved himself the time. The county men stood by the autopsy report. Tobin pointed out to him the various tests for poison that had been made upon the old man. The chief could not prove that anything had been taken from the house, and even the vandalism at Barnard’s did not budge them. They saw no reason to take the matter out of his hands. They just didn’t want any part of it, he thought. All they wanted was to be kept informed.

  On the way back from Riverdale he stopped at Barnard’s. The veterinary was slow to conceal his lack of enthusiasm for Waterman’s visit. “I’m afraid this business has upset my wife a great deal more than I thought,” he said, leading the way into the laboratory.

  “That’s a shame, Doc. I feel awful bad about it myself.” He noticed that the laboratory had been put back in order although the glass was missing from some of the cases. “I was thinking if we come out right side up on this, we might get the town board to pay for the damage.”

  “Do you think you have a chance of coming out right side up?”

  “I’d hate to be going at it this way if I didn’t have,” Waterman said. “Doc, do you know of any poison that might have been in the cat, that wouldn’t show up in the autopsy of the old man?”

  Barnard frowned. “No,” he said after a moment, “I don’t, and I’m virtually certain there was no poison in the cat.”

  “You got that far in the examination?”

  “The effects of any known poison would most likely have been evident in the organs of the animal as I separated them.”

  “How about the claws?”

  “Have you ever observed a cat, Waterman? Put anything on its claws and it licks them immediately. There would have been internal evidence.”

  “I see. Then you just don’t know any reason why your lab should have been destroyed?”

  “None. It was wanton destruction.”

  “Well,” the chief said, “there must have been a reason for it. Aimed at you or at us. Mrs. Barnard wasn’t very keen on you tackling the cat in the first place, was she?”

  “No.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “She didn’t want me to get involved in the thing.”

  That was a circle if Waterman had ever gone in one. He had to answer his own question. “I suppose it comes of her having lived in that house and all. Her father’s been dead a long time, hasn’t he?”

  “A good many years.”

  “And her mother?”

  “She’s been dead a long time too, although I don’t see what that has to do with this matter.”

  “Maybe nothing,” Waterman said. “But I might get somewhere if I could get a line on Mattson before he came to Hillside. There was a brother of Mrs. Barnard’s. He was a lot older than her as I remember it. I wonder if she could tell me where I might get in touch with him.”

  “I don’t believe Norah’s heard from him in years.”

  “I’d kind of like to ask her myself, if I could, Doc.”

  “You can, of course. But I’d appreciate your waiting a day or two, Fred. Doctor Jacobs was out this afternoon. He says she must have absolute quiet today.”

  “I guess it can wait,” Waterman said. “I’d like to know something else though, Doc, and if it’s none of my business you can say so.
The only relative you’ve got around here is Mabel Turnsby …”

  “You want to know why we’re not on better terms,” Barnard said. “That’s between the women themselves. I don’t like grudges, but I’ve given up on it. The whole trouble was the way Mabel treated Norah when she was a youngster. Norah had to stay with her when her mother went away sometimes. Mabel would take her to church and all her clubs with her. Whenever Norah’d squirm or get restless, the old lady would pinch her, and smile if somebody caught her at it as though she was playing with the child. Norah never forgave her.”

  “Women are the doggonedest things, aren’t they?” Waterman said, getting up to go.

  “The most complex creatures in the world,” Barnard said.

  As he got into the car the chief saw a flutter of curtains at the window of the upstairs bedroom. Norah Barnard and Mabel had more in common than a dislike for one another, he thought.

  At the station he learned that Alex had been in, Altman had been in, and Gilbert was complaining of a cramp in his arm from answering the phone. Waterman sent him home for supper. For a few moments the chief sat at his desk writing notes on the case, and he was satisfied now that it was a case. On his way home he stopped at the Whitings’. They were about to sit down to supper. “I ain’t going to stay but a minute,” he said. “I just want a word or two with Alex.”

  “Sit down and have a bite with us,” Mrs. Whiting said. “It’s pot roast. We’ve got plenty.”

  “Well,” the chief said, “I was going to shift for myself tonight. Ida’s up getting ready for that shindig tomorrow. But I don’t like to put you out none.”

  “You’re not putting us out at all.”

  “I hear you’re back in the inkpot, Charlie,” Waterman said, sitting down at the table.

  “And I haven’t felt better in months.”

  “That’s how I feel about retiring, too,” Waterman said. “But by the looks of it, I’ll go out with a bang at least. This thing’s stirring up like a real ruction. Altman’s talking about calling a council meeting.”

  “Maybe the coroner’s report in tomorrow’s paper will take care of it,” Alex said.

  “It ought to,” the chief said. “But some people think a coroner’s report means murder no matter what it says.”

  “That’s a hell of a logic,” Alex said. “Carry it through and the only reason you have for a police force is catching criminals. No crime prevention at all.”

  “Well, when you stop to think about it, boy, that’s the way most people think, including some police. Take these state troopers hiding behind signboards waiting for people to speed by. I never did go for that much. That’s all Gilbert thought his motorcycle was for.”

  “And now he’s going to be a funeral escort,” Alex said.

  “With Altman major-domo-ing,” his father said. “It’s a devil of a thing to say, but that’s what it amounts to. He’s got a great sense of politics. Still expects to bring Hillside up to his size.”

  “The way he’s going, he’ll do it all by himself,” Waterman said. “His wife’s due any day now.”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Whiting said, returning with a place setting. “This will be the seventh, won’t it?”

  “I went up to see George Addison this afternoon,” Alex said presently.

  He told them of the conversation.

  “Twenty-five thousand is quite a chunk of money,” Waterman said when he had finished. “I turned up a couple of things today myself.” He told them his deductions on how and why someone might have been in the house the night the old man died. “Mabel was mighty uneasy when I told her someone broke in there last night, and when I mentioned the cats might have been switched, I thought she’d faint dead away. She’s sure got something she’s not talking about.”

  “I felt that way too,” Alex said. “It makes the cat all the more important, doesn’t it?”

  “Yep, it does. I was out to see Doc Barnard again. I wanted to ask Norah a question or two, but I couldn’t get to see her. Seems Jake recommended a complete rest. And Doc Barnard wouldn’t throw a bone in our pot if we was never to get fed. He just won’t admit there might have been anything wrong with the cat. Did Addison mention the deal with Altman and Hershel, Alex?”

  “No. I didn’t want to ask him out straight.”

  “And we got nothing to go on there except what that kid, Ivantic, told you. Hershel didn’t mention it. But we’ve got to face it, Alex. If there’s murder involved, that’s one motive that showed up. It’d be hard to prove. Hershel could be expanding naturally these days. Addison’s the only person with the kind of money he’d need.”

  “How about the bank?” Mr. Whiting said. “They’d put up cash if the project was sound.”

  “I’m checking them,” Waterman said. “Now we got another motive: that twenty-five thousand. If Andy’s got an heir, with him dying before the Addison will was probated, that money goes to him.”

  “I’ll bet one of those two things is more than coincidence,” Alex said.

  “I don’t very much like the idea of sitting around waiting for an heir to show up,” the chief said. “But I sure don’t know where to go and look for him.”

  Alex reached into the pocket of his coat where it hung on the back of his chair. He took out his notebook. “I looked up the Who’s Who on Henry Addison,” he said. “Want to see it?”

  Waterman studied it for a moment. “Webber, Massachusetts,” he said. He returned the notebook.

  “And I checked on the house today,” Alex said. “The deed was transferred from Mike Turnsby to Andy in Chicago in 1917. Another thing I got was the address in Chicago from where he sent his property tax in 1933.”

  “Good boy!” Waterman said enthusiastically. “1933’s a long time ago, but in Andy’s life it’s as close to the present as we’ve come. That’s when he got five hundred dollars from Hershel.”

  “And it’s when Mabel says he was gone a couple of months and came back an old man.”

  “I’ll get a wire out to the Chicago police on it. Maybe something. Maybe nothing.”

  “Eat your supper. It’s getting cold,” Mrs. Whiting said.

  Waterman took a few bites. “It’s awfully good, ma’am,” he said, but he ran the next sentence into his compliment. “Chicago’s a mighty big place. But I can’t help thinking the two times we know Andy was there have some connection. Maybe that’s what Mabel knows. Maybe that’s why the Barnards don’t want to talk much about them early times, either.”

  “But it was Mabel told me of his going away,” Alex said. “Dad, I wish you’d tell us all you remember about Mike Turnsby. How long did he live here? What kind of work did he do?”

  Mr. Whiting thought for a few seconds. “I remember he was here when I started in business. He was born here I think, but he was away for a while. It’s so doggoned long ago, I can’t remember, Alex. He came back from the Spanish-American War, I know that.”

  “I think Andy was in the Philippines then, too,” Alex said. “I took that ribbon and medal of his up to the museum this afternoon.”

  “Later I know Turnsby was the first water and sanitary commissioner in Hillside.”

  Alex remembered Andy’s books on hydraulics. “It’s queer Andy had to put in his own plumbing if Turnsby had that kind of job.”

  “I don’t think Turnsby planned staying around Hillside long,” Waterman said. “I remember that fuss now. They said he was making a guinea pig out of the town. He had a lot of hare-brained ideas on our water system. Said it carried every disease they had in Riverdale down here. Matter of fact, it wasn’t so hare-brained as it turned out. About ten years later the whole thing came up again with the typhus epidemic.”

  “And that I want to know about, too,” Alex said.

  “You were in the thick of that, Charlie,” Waterman said. “You better tell it.”

  “It came on us like the plague,” Mr. Whiting said. “You took Alex away then, Laura. Remember?”

  “I won’t ever fo
rget it.”

  “We had county and state men all over here and they couldn’t find the source. Finally it was Doc Barnard traced it down to the milk, then to the cows that grazed along the river, and then to the disposal system of Addison Industries up in Riverdale. Then we had a fight on our hands. The county wouldn’t accept his research, much less his deductions, and we went head-on into the stone foundation of Addison. We couldn’t even get cooperation from our own people. The cheap river power for the mill, the toy factory. It was a big factor in transportation. The farmers fought us. Taxation was brought into it. We had a hell of a time. In the end we got what we wanted, but there was no victory in it for us. Henry Addison made the magnanimous gesture of diverting the Industries’ drainage. We’d won in fact, if not in principle, and we had to let it go at that.”

  “How did Barnard come out of it?” Alex asked.

  “He was a long time getting into local favor again,” Mr. Whiting said. “But I think it did something for his prestige in research.”

  “He don’t live on his prestige in research,” Waterman said. “I wonder if that’s why his wife was dead nuts against him getting into this business.”

  No one answered him.

  “Getting back to Mike Turnsby,” Alex said presently. “What happened to him?”

  “He was costing the town too much money,” the chief said. “Got contractors in to bid on a whole new water system. It got rumored around he was getting a cut from them. Between the stink they kicked up and the fur flying at home between his wife and Mabel, I think he figured the hell with it, and cleared out.”

  “How did Mabel feel about that business?” Alex asked. “There must have been quite a hullabaloo.”

  “She didn’t like it much. I don’t remember rightly,” Waterman said. “Seems to me she took on martyr airs. Mighty sensitive woman in those days, wouldn’t you say, Laura?”

  “I’m not a fair judge of Mabel,” Mrs. Whiting said. “Like Alex, I always felt butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. I remember her coming up to Charles at the time. We had the plant at the back of the house. She brought pictures and a whole long tale of how many Turnsbys lived and died in Hillside, how they’d founded it.”