by Amanda Cross
She was aroused by the telephone from the contemplation of this fascinating question. “Professor Fansler?” Kate admitted it. “This is Miss Lindsay. I’m sorry to disturb you, but you seemed interested enough in the information so that I thought you wouldn’t mind. I tried to telephone you at home last night, but there wasn’t any answer. I thought you’d rather hear from me than Jackie Miller.”
“Yes, of course,” Kate said, “it’s very nice of you to call. I’m afraid I didn’t come away with a very favorable impression of Jackie Miller in her extraordinary pajamas. Are you about to tell me that I am now in her debt?”
“I don’t know. But you did seem anxious about the name of the person who had seen Janet Harrison with a man, and the other evening Jackie Miller remembered it. She turned to me and suggested that—um—I might want to tell you what it was.” Kate could well imagine what Jackie had said: “You’re her pet pigeon, why don’t you call her up and tell her?” “Ordinarily,” Miss Lindsay went on, “I wouldn’t think of bothering you at home, but under the circumstances … Of course, as it turned out, I didn’t bother you.”
“I’m very grateful to you. What’s the name? It will all probably turn out to be a mare’s nest, but we might as well know.”
“Her name is Dribble. Anne Dribble.”
“Can anybody possibly be named Dribble?”
“It is unlikely, but that seems to be her name. Jackie thought of it because someone mentioned dribbling. She lived in the dorm here for a short time last semester, but she didn’t like it, and moved out soon after. She isn’t in the phone book. I’m afraid this isn’t very much help.”
“On the contrary, I’m very grateful to you. Did you know Miss Dribble at all, well enough, I mean, to decide if she’s at all reliable?”
“I didn’t know her well, no; barely at all, in fact. But she wasn’t—she wasn’t Jackie’s sort.”
“Thank you very much, Miss Lindsay. I expect I can trace her through the university’s records. I appreciate your calling.” Reed had said that the key to the whole thing might well be here. Probably, however, they would just get another lead that would peter out in some dead end. Kate’s class was in fifteen minutes. She called the registrar and requested the address and telephone number of Anne Dribble, who had been registered last semester, possibly this. She was asked to hold on, and did so, not for long. The voice returned to say that Anne Dribble had registered this semester but withdrawn because of illness (this, Kate knew, meant anything from appendicitis to a love affair). Her address was something Waverly Place, and her telephone number … Kate wrote it down, and hung up after expressing thanks.
Well, carpe diem. She dialed, first for an outside line, then the number. The phone rang at least six times before it was answered by a female clearly aroused from sleep. “May I please speak to Miss Anne Dribble?” Kate asked.
“Speaking.” Kate had been certain it would not be this simple. She was going to be late for her lecture.
“Miss Dribble, forgive me for disturbing you, but I think you might be able to help. You know, I’m sure, about the death of Janet Harrison. We have discovered, quite inadvertently, that you saw her in a restaurant some months ago with a man. I wonder if by any chance you know who the man was?”
“Good Lord, I’d forgotten. How in the world …?”
“Miss Dribble, the point is this. Would you recognize that man if you saw him again?”
“Oh, yes, I think so.” Kate’s heart gave a leap. “They were in a small Czechoslovakian restaurant; I happened to go there because I was visiting a friend who lived down the block from it. Janet Harrison and the man were at the other end, and I had the feeling they didn’t want to be approached. But I did look at him. You know, one is curious about the men one’s acquaintances go about with, and Janet had always been so mysterious. I think I might recognize him.” Kate had not seen Horan; but she thought of Sparks, of Emanuel, of Messenger (who was homely)—could the girl describe the man sufficiently on the phone?
“Miss Dribble, put it this way. If that man were to be lined up with, say, six other men who resembled him superficially, could you pick him out?”
There was a moment’s silence. She is going to ask who the hell I am, Kate thought. But all Miss Dribble said was: “I’m not certain. I think I would know him again, but I saw him only from a distance in a restaurant. Who … ?”
“Miss Dribble, could you give me a quick description of him? Tall, short, fat, thin, dark, fair?” (Emanuel’s light hair was now mixed with gray, and looked lighter.) “What sort of person was he?”
“He was sitting down, of course. It’s probably quite inaccurate, but if you want a general sort of description, he reminded me of Cary Grant. Good-looking, you know, and suave. I remember being rather surprised that Janet Harrison … she was attractive, of course, but this man …”
“Thank you, thank you,” Kate muttered, hanging up the phone.
Cary Grant!
Yet she managed, just barely, not to be late for the lecture.
Fourteen
“COME into my office,” Messenger said. Jerry followed him down the hall with a certain sense of giddiness. This morning he had been talking to Kate; now, a ridiculously short time afterward (though the turning back of his watch accounted somewhat for this), he was about to talk with Messenger, although he had not the slightest idea of what he was going to say. Planning that rigmarole for the nurse had been one thing, his fumbling with Horan another, but Messenger made both of these techniques impossible. Jerry could not have named the particular quality that marked Messenger, though he recognized it. Nature had bestowed on Messenger none of her usual frivolous endowments; he had neither looks, nor any sort of physical grace, nor wit, nor superficial cleverness. He was simply himself. Jerry was to try later to explain it to Kate, with no great success. All he could think of to say was that Messenger was there. Most people were a collection of mannerisms, but they were not simply there, themselves. In any case, Kate’s instinct had been right: only the truth was possible.
Jerry explained, therefore, about Emanuel and Kate, about himself and the job he had taken, about the trucks he had driven before and the law school he was planning to attend. “We’ve come to you for help,” Jerry said, “because you seem the one person who might possibly connect some of the odd bits and pieces that we have. Janet Harrison left you her money—that connects you with her, even if she was unknown to you. And you knew Barrister. So far, no two people in this mess connect at all, except, of course, Kate and Emanuel, and neither of them killed Janet Harrison. Perhaps, if you were to tell me something about Barrister …”
“I’m afraid the only things I could tell you about him would not be precisely useful to your purpose, which I gather is to cast Mike in the role of chief murderer. Of course, he’s probably changed somewhat; most people do. I wouldn’t have guessed that Mike would end up with a practice among rich ailing women, but I’m not surprised now that I know it. It’s very easy for doctors to make a great deal of money today, and most of them do. I don’t mean doctors are more moneygrubbing than anybody else—there are too few doctors, and many opportunities to get rich. And most doctors feel,” Messenger smiled, “that they are owed some return for what is an immensely long and expensive training. One of my young daughters thinks now she would like to be a doctor, and I’ve figured out that it would cost about $32,000 to make her one. All that this means is that the Barrister you are investigating isn’t quite the same as the Mike I knew—and I never knew him all that well. He was a reticent sort of person.”
“You’re not rich.” This was not, Jerry realized, to the point, but Messenger interested him.
“No, nor noble either. I don’t happen to be interested in most of the things that are expensive, and I’m married to a woman who finds making do a fascinating challenge. She likes to plan, to make clothes, to do things—in the old way. And she likes to have a job. I think that the work I’m doing is the most interesting, important work t
here is; and, to be frank, I feel sorry for everybody who isn’t doing it. But I don’t do it because it doesn’t pay all that much. I’d be doing the same thing even if it happened that doing this made me rich as Croesus.”
“Was Mike like that, when you knew him?”
“Who can tell? I’ve found that young men have ideas, and theories, but you never know what you are until you become it. Do you read C. P. Snow?” Jerry shook his head. “Interesting writer, to me, anyway; I don’t know if your Professor Fansler would agree. In one of his books, he has his narrator say that there’s only one test for discovering what you really want: it consists in what you have. But Mike was too young then to make the test; you’re too young now.
“I will say this,” Messenger continued, “though I’m afraid it won’t help you very much—quite the contrary. Mike wasn’t the sort who could kill anyone. Not possibly, in my opinion. To carry out a murder requires at least two qualities of personality, I should think. One is what we might call a streak of sadism, for lack of a better word, and the other is the ability to concentrate on what one wants to the exclusion of everything else. To see people, not as people, but as obstacles to be removed.”
“You mean he loved people, and animals, and couldn’t bear to see anyone hurt?”
Messenger smiled. “That sounds sentimental. Anyone who wants to be a doctor knows that people have to be hurt, that people suffer. People who never cause pain never cause anything else; and Mike wanted then, at least, to cause a good deal. I don’t remember what he felt about animals—certainly he never had one when I knew him. What I mean sounds overblown when you put it into words: he never caused pain for the hell of it—you know, by a triumph of wit or a clever joke. And he never withheld kindness. I don’t read poetry, but I had to listen to some in college courses; and I always remember one line which seemed to me very well to describe much of life today, perhaps always: ‘greetings where no kindness is.’ Mike didn’t go in for that sort of greeting. But you mustn’t think I’m describing a saint. Mike was very good-looking and attractive to women. He had a good time.”
Jerry looked depressed. It seemed horrible that their chief suspect should turn out to be incapable of murder. But that, after all, was Messenger’s opinion, and was Messenger all that smart? He, Jerry, had in college (just to take one instance) been party to a joke that involved an awkward, rather effeminate young man and an exceedingly slick and experienced young woman. He remembered it still with something remarkably close to pleasure. And certainly kindness was nothing to which he had given much thought—and as for this garbage about greetings.… Yet he was not capable of murder either. Not even if … well, one never really knew; that’s what it came down to. If one knew, there would be fewer unsolved murders.
Messenger seemed to read his thoughts. “I’m no authority, you know, no student of human nature. Just my impressions.”
“You shared a room when you were residents, you and Barrister. Did you know him before?”
“No. The hospital helped you find rooms, and roommates. When we were on duty, of course, we slept at the hospital, so home was really where we slept when we got the chance, and kept beer in a secondhand icebox.”
“Did you ever meet Barrister’s family?”
“He didn’t have any, to speak of. Surely the police found out all about that. In fact, the detective who came to see me mentioned it. Mike was an orphan, as he was fond of saying, with a grin. He’d been the only child of an only child, and was brought up by his grandparents; they were both dead when I knew him. I gather he had a happy childhood. You know, I remember something he said once about Lawrence, the writer, I mean. Mike was a great reader.”
“Literature seems to be following me around in this case.”
“Odd, isn’t it? I’ve already quoted poetry and Snow, and I don’t think I’ve been guilty of a literary reference in years. Perhaps it’s the influence of your Professor Fansler. I don’t know why I should think of books in connection with Mike. But the only specific thing he ever told me about his childhood had to do with D. H. Lawrence.”
“Lady Chatterley’s Lover?” Jerry asked.
“I don’t think so; were there any children in that?”
“No,” Jerry said. “Not born yet, anyway.”
“Well, it wasn’t that then. In this book there was a little girl, frightened for some reason, and her stepfather carried her about with him while he fed the cows. I don’t really know what the connection is, because Mike’s grandfather didn’t have cows. But something about the way his grandfather comforted him, after his parents were killed—Lawrence had caught that, Mike said. It doesn’t sound very important. I don’t know why I mention it. Anyway, Mike didn’t have much family, though there was some old lady he used to write to.”
“Did he have any special woman then?”
“Not that I know of. You’re thinking, perhaps, Janet Harrison knew him then, and I didn’t know about it. Well, it’s not impossible, I suppose. Mike didn’t talk about his women, but surely the police know where Janet Harrison was at that time.”
“Did he go away much?”
“No. When we had short vacations we slept.”
“How long were you together?”
“A year, more or less. For the length of our residency. I came to Chicago. Mike thought he might, too, but he didn’t.”
“Where did he go?”
“New York. You know that.”
“Did you hear from him in New York?”
“No. I don’t think he went there right away. He went on a vacation first, camping. We both like camping. I was supposed to go with him, but then, at the last minute, I couldn’t. He went on up to Canada—I had a card from him. I told all this to the detective. That’s the last I heard of him, except for Christmas cards. We exchanged those for a few years, later on.”
“It seems odd you never saw him in New York.”
“I’ve only been there a few times, for medical conventions. I took the family, and any spare time I had I spent with them. Once I saw Mike, but we didn’t really have time to get together. Anyway, there wouldn’t have been very much point to it.”
“It’s all clear enough, I guess, except why she left you the money. You didn’t save her life once, and forget about it?”
“I don’t save lives. I can’t, of course, say positively that I never laid eyes on her, but I don’t think I did, and certainly not for any length of time. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. You don’t really know, do you, that Mike ever knew her? So the fact that I once knew Mike isn’t really all that conclusive. I’d like to help you; I just can’t think of any way I can.”
“Are you going to take the money? Perhaps I haven’t any business asking you that.”
“It’s a natural enough question. I don’t know that I’ll get the money. The girl was murdered, and she has some family who might, I suppose, contest the will. But if I got the money I would take it, provided there was no one with a real claim. I could use the money—couldn’t anyone? Besides, there’s something odd about a windfall—one never expected it, and then, when one hears of it, one is convinced it was somehow deserved.”
“Did Mike know you were going into research?”
“Oh, yes, everyone knew that. Mike used to say if I was going to live the rest of my life on four thousand a year—that’s what they paid in those days—I’d better marry a rich wife or one who liked to work. I took his advice, you see—the latter part of it.”
Jerry could have spun out the questions—there were many that occurred to him, but he could guess most of the answers, and didn’t think them very important, in any case. Messenger could, of course, have been lying. He could have been in league with Barrister for years. But even if they could have concocted this murder for $25,000 between them, Messenger didn’t look capable of it. His honesty was so patent that it was, Jerry thought, impossible to be in his presence and even consider the idea of his involvement in a plot. He might be shrewd enough, but he seemed o
ne of those rare persons who say what they mean, and mean what they say—surely the wrong sort to plan some diabolical scheme. Jerry stood up.
“There was one other thing,” he said, “though I don’t really have to bother you with it. You’ll just save me some research. In law, you have to pass the bar exam of the state in which you intend to practice. That’s true in the East. There’s a certain reciprocity, of course, but if you practice in New York, you have to have passed the New York bar exam. If you’ve taken the New Jersey bar exam, that won’t do. Isn’t the same thing true in medicine? Did Barrister have to take the New York exam in order to practice there?”
“No. There’s something called the National Board of Medical Examiners—they give a certificate which is accepted as adequate qualification by almost all the states. There are some exceptions, I don’t remember what they are, but New York isn’t one of them. Other states require some sort of oral or written examination. But Mike had no more exams to take in order to practice in New York—probably he had to register, or something of the sort.”
“Thank you, Dr. Messenger. You’ve been very kind.”
“Not much help, I’m afraid. Let me know if anything else occurs to you. I think you’ll find, you know, that Mike didn’t do it. People leave tastes behind them; Mike didn’t leave that kind of taste.” He bowed Jerry out. Jerry, going back to the hotel to put in a long-distance call to Kate, felt that Messenger left a fine taste, no doubt of that; but the case as a whole had by now a taste that could be described only as rancid.
