The Judas Cat

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “He returned to America obsessed with the idea of breaking Addison. I saw him then. It was the first time since that night my mother had carried me out, and if I had ever wondered the reason my mother feared him, I knew then. He was a wild man, but as eloquent as the devil’s advocate. He infected Turnsby with his zeal … and by the way, Whiting, Turnsby was not an insignificant man. He was erratic, but he had a good brain and he was a good engineer.”

  “I know,” Alex said. “He foresaw a lot of our health problems in Hillside.”

  “Well, they went after Addison, more or less like mice after elephants. And that was just about the effect they had on him. It was years after their first efforts, and Mattson seemed to have forgotten it, but it preyed on Turnsby. Addison had a place in Colorado then, and Turnsby went up there one night. To this day, nobody really knows what took place, but in the morning Addison swore out a warrant for poor Mike, charging criminal assault. He made it stick, and he made it quiet, presumably for the sake of Turnsby’s family.”

  “Where was Mattson then?” Alex asked.

  “Sitting in Hillside, contemplating the broader aspects of the situation. I came to see him. He said that Turnsby was a fool to have permitted himself the luxury of irrevocable defeat. He was no longer interested. I thought then that he had gone over to Addison’s side.”

  “Do you have reason to think otherwise now?”

  “Yes. In 1933 my mother was very ill and I was desperate. I’m an architect and I’d been unemployed for three years. I wrote to him and I wrote to Henry Addison, I was that desperate. Mattson came and brought five hundred dollars two days later. It was enough for the funeral. I knew then that he had loved her. And I knew that he had not and would not forgive Henry Addison.”

  How much closer to a solution of Andy’s death he was getting, Alex did not know, but certainly he was getting closer to his life. “Isn’t it strange,” he asked presently, “that Addison would continue to visit him year after year under those conditions?”

  “I’ve thought about that a great deal,” Turnsby said. “I think perhaps Mattson was like his conscience, something he never quite escaped, even though he knew it would cost him something in the end.”

  “I wonder what it did cost him,” Alex said.

  “If there’s a codicil to his will as you say, you ought to be able to find out.”

  “Yes,” Alex said, “and if there is a codicil, it probably cost Andy his life. How much of this story does Mabel Turnsby know?”

  “Most of it, I think. I don’t know about the early part. When we came to live in that house next to hers …” He stopped for a second. “That’s where Mattson died, isn’t it?”

  Alex nodded.

  Turnsby continued: “When we came there, she didn’t like it at all. That was because she knew my mother was divorced and remarried to her brother. She made it miserable for her, and Mike Turnsby had been away from Hillside too long to be happy there himself.”

  “Did she know your mother was Addison’s sister?”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t know it myself until Turnsby’s trial. Mabel had always considered Mike something of a disgrace to the family. He’d sold practically all their property and spent the money. And by then Addison was a big name in the county.”

  “Was she informed at the time of your mother’s death?” Alex asked, remembering Mabel’s recollection of Andy’s trip at that time.

  “No. Unless Mattson told her. And I doubt that very much.”

  “It’s strange,” Alex said, “that not even a rumor of this escaped in Hillside. How about Norah Barnard? How did she find her way back to Hillside?”

  “Turnsby land. When she was married to Barnard, her father gave it to her. He was looking for a country place to set up as a veterinary. Hillside quite suited their purposes.”

  “Where was she when Turnsby was indicted?”

  “In Hillside. Like Mabel, they wanted no part of him. They didn’t even inquire after my mother. And Norah had never seen Mattson to my knowledge until she came to live in Hillside. It must have been a shock to her, for the resemblance between my father and me was very marked.”

  “It must have been an even greater shock to them the night I brought them Mattson’s cat,” Alex said. “After all the years of secrecy, of avoidance of Mattson … isn’t it ironic that I should go to him with it?”

  Turnsby did not answer, and Alex realized presently that he had not made a single inquiry about his father’s death. That he too was at odds with George Addison was obvious, and that he was more familiar with him, and at ease with him than after a first meeting, was also obvious. There was too much hate among these families, and too much marriage of the minds for the sake of expediency. Barnard might have told him much of this, and yet he told him nothing, and the closer Alex came to the truth, the more violent Barnard became in the pursuit of justice. He could picture Norah Barnard now as a girl, a plain, unloved and frightened child, for he was sure that Walter was his mother’s darling.

  He straightened up from where he had slouched over the steering wheel. The tension had tightened the muscles between his shoulders. With everything he discovered the possibilities grew instead of diminishing. He looked at his watch. It was almost four o’clock. He wondered what had happened to Waterman since he had been gone.

  “Did you say three men tried to attack you today, Whiting?”

  Alex was already looking in the same direction as Turnsby, the shoulder of the road at the intersection in Masontown. They passed the black sedan, and when the light changed the car turned onto the highway behind them, keeping the same distance even when he stopped to let Turnsby out at Barnard’s. When he turned up Deerpath Avenue and parked in front of the house, the sedan drew to a stop at the head of the street.

  Chapter 44

  THERE WAS NOT A soul on Deerpath Avenue although it was Saturday afternoon, and the usual time for gardening, and kids playing ball in the corner lot. Next door the blinds were drawn in the Withrow house, and on the lawn a little spout of water rose where the sprinkler had fallen over and no one had come out to straighten it. Alex set it upright himself and then went indoors. Joan and his mother clung to him the moment he stepped into the hall.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “Nothing’s happened to me.”

  “I’ll call your father and tell him you’re home,” Mrs. Whiting said. She went into the den immediately.

  “For one who said she wouldn’t marry me last night, you look kind of concerned, darling,” he said to Joan.

  “Don’t tease, Alex. It’s been an awful day.”

  “Has anything happened here?”

  “No, except you’d think a plague was running through the town. Where is it going to end, Alex?”

  “I don’t know, honey. I don’t know at all. I hope we can bring it to a head this afternoon.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Stay here with Mom and wait for me. Is your family worried about you?”

  “No. I call them once in a while. Dad says if there’s anything he can do I’m to let him know.”

  Alex changed his clothes quickly. He took his service revolver from a box on the closet shelf. It was something he had hoped never to use again. Downstairs he drank half the tea his mother insisted that he take.

  “Say a prayer, Mom,” he said, leaving the house.

  As he turned off Deerpath Avenue he saw the sedan start after him. It parked in view of the station. Waterman opened the screen door and held it for him. Barnard and his father were there, and Gilbert, all of them showing the tension of waiting for his return. No one said a word until he sat down at the round table. Then they pulled their chairs about him. Alex sat where he could keep the black sedan in view.

  “I see you got traveling companions,” Waterman said.

  “Yes. I picked up the extra two in Riverdale.”

  “Did you see Gautier?” his father asked.

  “Gautier and Addison,” Alex said. “Not togeth
er, however.” He looked at Barnard. “And I met Walter Turnsby and gave him a ride down to your house, Doc.”

  Barnard said nothing. His only change of expression was a little frown. His fingers moved uneasily along the desk.

  “You could have saved us a lot of grief, Doc, by telling us all the things you know.”

  “He told them to us this afternoon,” Waterman said. “He told us how Mattson got Mike Turnsby after old Addison, and how him and Norah found out Mattson was Walter Turnsby’s father when they got one look at the old man. I don’t know’s I blame them for wanting to keep clean of it.”

  Alex leaned forward. “I didn’t mean that. Doc, I want to know one thing. I don’t like to be suspicious of the people I’m working with, and I want to know the real reason your lab was smashed up.”

  Barnard’s mouth was working before he made a sound. “All right,” he said finally. “I discovered the cat had not been fed for at least forty-eight hours. It had been given an injection, something to quiet it, probably, to keep it from scratching whoever handled it.”

  “But just enough dope to wear off when Mattson was alone with it. Was that it?” Waterman said.

  “Just about,” said Barnard. “I couldn’t be sure. The animal was dead too long, but that’s what it looked like to me.”

  “And all this time you wouldn’t tell us although you knew the county had ignored evidence like that,” Alex said. “You saw us put under a restraining order and still wouldn’t help us till now?”

  “Do you think you’re the only one persecuted in this business?” Barnard said fiercely. “You were not gone from the house twenty minutes the night you brought me the accursed animal, when I got a call to remind me of what happened to Norah’s poor demented father. And still I was determined to help you … and with a hysterical wife beseeching me to let it alone. Then in the morning when I made an early call and took Norah with me to keep her safe, my laboratory was smashed to smithereens.”

  “It gave you a good reason for not being able to help us,” Alex said.

  “Of course. That’s what it was intended to do.”

  “Seems too bad, Doc,” Waterman said, his easy voice in contrast to Barnard’s tenseness, “that cow and calf you attended at Allendale both dying.”

  “All right,” Barnard said more quietly, “I bungled the delivery. I’d been up most of the night.”

  “They were awful put out about it at Allendale, a prize animal like that coming early, and you attending her all summer. It didn’t do your reputation much good.”

  “I’ve no reputation left. I know that. Do you think I’d be here now if I didn’t know my salvation depends on yours?”

  “I suppose not,” Alex said.

  “I think you better tell us now what happened to you this afternoon, Alex,” Waterman said.

  “I’m certain now, Chief, that Andy Mattson and Mabel Turnsby were witnesses to a revision to the Addison will, or a codicil to that will. Andy kept one copy, and he must have made up a dummy on which he forged Mabel’s handwriting and maybe Addison’s. The attacker got the dummy. Andy had left the key with Mabel and instructions on where to find the real copy if he died suddenly.”

  “What makes you so sure, Alex?”

  “I’ve given my word not to disclose that information—not at this time anyway.”

  “If that’s what it is, it’s going to take all our wit and persuasion to get it from her,” Waterman said, “and that’s probably just what those thugs out there are waiting for.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Alex said.

  “Let’s hear what happened up there,” Waterman said.

  Alex told them, omitting only the confidential information provided by Gautier. Waterman made an occasional note on the big tablet while he listened. “What was your feeling about Turnsby?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Chief. I felt there was something between him and Addison that didn’t come across to me while I was there or afterwards. I got the feeling they knew each other pretty well, although they didn’t see eye to eye.”

  “Can you tell us anything about him, Doc?”

  “Very little. He was a strange man. I only saw him once, and what Norah’s told me about him. She was scared to death of him as a youngster, and he was always the mother’s favorite … I can’t help feeling uneasy about his being at our house now. He never cared about us, not even enough to inform Norah of her mother’s death.”

  “I was wondering about that,” Waterman said. He turned to Alex. “Do you feel Hershel fits into the picture any place?”

  “I don’t know. Until we get the codicil we can’t discount him. He was getting pretty anxious to put that deal over with Addison. But I think that’s as far as him and Altman fit. Where’s the mayor this afternoon?”

  “I’m not sure. Gilbert picked up word he was having a baby today on top of everything else.”

  “It’s good to know something normal’s happening in the town,” Mr. Whiting said.

  Waterman was making notes. He looked up to catch Alex glancing out of the window at the car. “Patient, ain’t they?” he said. “What about this lawyer fellow? How do you feel about him?”

  “Either he was dead right in figuring this story, or he set a perfect trap for us, and I don’t know how we’re going to tell until we walk into it. In a way he’s just about guided my whole thinking on it.”

  “What’s his name again?” Barnard asked.

  “Gautier. Roy Gautier.”

  “The name’s familiar. He ran for office once, didn’t he?”

  “State’s attorney.”

  Waterman got up from the table. “I found that little vagrant you was talking about, Alex. Jim Pasteriki flushed him out of his haystack. He’s entertaining him till I get around to picking him up. I got nothing to hold him on, and not much to hold him with so I’ve been taking my time about it. Alex, you’ve dug out more miscellaneous information than a porcupine’s got quills. I think we ought to concentrate on just two things now and add the rest up later: Mattson locked himself in tight whenever he was indoors, and if he was taking those precautions, I don’t think he opened the door that night to any stranger. I’m not sure he’d open it to anybody he knew, feeling the way he did.” He picked up the sheaf of notes and took them to his desk. He pulled the roll-top down over them and locked it. “And now, Alex, I guess we can go call on Mabel. We’ll be about as welcome as a family of skunks. You coming, Charlie?”

  Mr. Whiting nodded.

  “And you still want to come, Doc?”

  “Yes. I’ve gone this far, I’ll stay to the end.”

  “Well, it’s going to be the end of something I guess,” Waterman said. “And maybe you can help shake her loose of that family ghost that’s been haunting her.” He took his revolver from its holster, unloaded and reloaded it. “I hope I don’t have to use this but I don’t aim to lose anything we get from Mabel. I think we’ll walk from here. I feel safer with my feet on the ground. When we get there, Gilbert, you’ll go back of Mattson’s place and cover the house. Don’t let anybody come in while we’re there.”

  Gilbert ran his tongue over his lips. His eyes were watery with fear. Alex was conscious of the weight of his revolver in his pocket. As they left the station, Waterman turned and locked the door. They waited while he went around and left the key with the fire chief, much as a businessman might when he was going out to lunch.

  It was four blocks from the station to Mabel’s house, and Alex thought as they started of the many times he had traveled it these last four days. Waterman and his father were ahead, Mr. Whiting’s blue shirt dark with perspiration, his neck red, and his shoulders broad and still very straight. Waterman’s coat hung on him as though it were pasted on the thin stooped shoulders. These were the things Alex thought about. His mind would go no further on the subject of Andy Mattson’s death. There were the sounds of doors closing, and only rarely, far ahead of them, were there people in sight, and when they came to where these people ha
d been, they were gone. A train whistle sounded in the distance, a freight train, Alex thought, knowing the time of day. The streets they crossed smelled of tar and were soft beneath their feet. He fell to watching Waterman’s feet, the slow determined pace of them. He could hear Barnard’s heavy breathing as the veterinary walked beside him, and on his other side, Gilbert was counting the cracks in the pavement. When they came to Sunrise Avenue, Alex saw the black sedan a block behind them, and as they turned up Mabel’s walk and went around her house to the back door, the car passed them, and stopped opposite the vacant lot next to Mattson’s house.

  For a second Alex wondered if they could be sheriff’s deputies. Surely they could not operate so boldly outside the law. But he had forgotten, Hillside was without the law. It was like a town that somehow had been cut off from the rest of the world and become a law unto itself. Gilbert left them reluctantly and went to take up his solitary vigil from among Andy’s overgrown bushes.

  For just an instant Alex saw Mabel’s white top over the kitchen curtains, but Waterman’s knock went unanswered. There was only the clucking of chickens in the back yards along the street, and the heavy breathing of the men as they waited. At last Waterman took his pen knife from his pocket and began to cut away the screening on the door. Mabel came then, opening the door only wide enough to show her face. Waterman had unlatched the screen door and opened it.

  “Please go away,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t feel good.” Her eyes, the fear wild in them, went from one face to another.

  “Just for a little bit, Mabel,” Waterman said gently. “We aren’t going to hurt you at all.”

  Her eyes dropped to his hand on the door knob. His knuckles showed white beneath the skin with the firmness of his grip. The door fell open then as she let it go. Waterman went in first, and Alex after him. Barnard and Whiting came up the steps and into the house, closing the door behind them.