But Tiffin wasn’t listening to me. With Jocko in tow he was headed for the back door. I watched him go and then opened the front door. A uniformed policeman was guarding it. Jeff was nearly to the top of the stairs. He had got that far by now.
“Go home, Jeff,” I said. He looked blankly at me. “Go home,” I said again. Then the reporters started forward and the policeman slammed the door on me. Jeff evidently got the idea because a moment later I heard a grunting and a clatter. Then a loud thud followed by some lovely cursing. Later, I learned that Jeff had stumbled over the other men and they had obligingly tossed him on down the stairs.
When I got back to the kitchen I found the water boiling. My instructions had been a waste of breath. I had to make the tea myself. Those Portland policemen just sat there and stared at me. Then, when I was ready to take the tea to Daisy, an important-looking plainsclothesman came in from the porch and tried to stop me. I gave him the nurse routine and he let me by. Once in the room I locked all the doors I could see and settled down to do battle.
Having thoughtfully put two cups on the tray I had some tea myself. Daisy was quiet while the tea thawed her and it gave me time to study my sins. Perhaps it had been a dirty trick to turn Glory over to the police but I was having theories and I felt that for her own protection as well as that of others she would be better off under guard.
Having salved my conscience, I went to work on Daisy. It was no simple task. Not only was she reticent, she was downright stubborn at times. I had to keep away from the subject of suicide. When it was approached she backed off—and fast.
I concentrated on the earlier events of this evening. I finally got her started and kept her going long enough to get three important facts from her. First, there had been a phone call. Second, it had upset her father. He seemed angry too. At least that was the impression she gave me. Third, he had gone into private consultation with her mother; and Hilton seemed quite disturbed about the whole affair though Daisy was sure no one had given him the gist of the call.
After getting that off her chest she became as mulish as Frew. We finished the contents of the teapot and I tried a few more subjects. But they all led around to suicide and she shied off before I could learn anything.
She was either getting sleepy or making an excellent pretense of it. So I got up to go. I stood by the foot of her bed, looking at her and decided on a last try.
“By the way,” I said casually. “are you sure you didn’t see anyone come up the path while you were in the trees—the night Delhart was killed?”
Daisy came very wide awake. It only lasted an instant and then she was her pouting self again. “No,” she said. “And I already gave my statement to the police.”
I hadn’t expected an answer, just some kind of reaction. And I had got it, so I let her go to sleep.
There were four doors in her room. One went to a closet, one into the hall, one directly to the storeroom, and the fourth I wasn’t sure of. I unlocked it and eased it open. I found myself in the presence of a suddenly awake and very angry Mrs. Willow.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded in a grand manner.
“Thought I’d see how you were,” I said, using my professionally soothing voice. “I’ve calmed your daughter. She’s sleeping now.” I looked the door behind me and pulled a chair to the side of the bed. I offered her a smile. “I’m pinch-hitting for a nurse,” I said. “So don’t get excited. I’m sure you prefer me to a policeman.”
“This is outrageous!” she snapped. But there wasn’t much steam in it. “And why should the police feel it necessary to guard me?”
“It’s this way,” I said vaguely. “There’s been too much violence already.” I made myself comfortable and lit a cigaret, all as if I were oblivious of a frigid stare directed at me.
“Now,” I said, “the police will want to know about your husband’s phone call this evening.”
“I’m sure that is none of your affair,” she said icily.
I wasn’t having any. I could see underneath the ice and I knew she was a badly frightened woman. Not just upset, but genuinely frightened. I wasn’t surprised to find her so calm about Willow. I had seen her when Daisy had tried to commit suicide. She had been angry then, more than anything. I was beginning to believe she was above average in callousness. Or perhaps she was one of those people who could never show their true feelings in public. Whichever it was, I lost my patience.
“Now,” I said again, without gentleness, “Tiffin has gone to get Glory Martin. Your husband isn’t and won’t be capable of talking for some time. And there were witnesses to the telephone call, so being coy about it won’t help you.” I could see the building up of the good old feminine cut-em-dead hauteur on her face. “And that won’t get you anywhere either,” I added. “I’m impervious to snubs.”
She compressed her mouth and stared coldly at me. I said, “Tiffin will find out Glory was trying to blackmail Mr. Willow. It’s inevitable. The circumstantial evidence of the bloodstained suit is enough to put Tiffin on the right track. Besides, Tim Larson was with Glory when she gathered her blackmail information.”
Then she got under my skin. “Glory Martin,” she said disdainfully. “A dipsomaniac. And Tim Larson. Who will take the word of a servant?” I began to simmer, and worked fast toward a boil.
“What were you?” I said angrily, “in the days when you worked for Delhart?”
I think I could have slapped her, kicked her, accused her of murder, and still not had half as much reaction as I got now. She lost her icy aplomb completely. In the moment before she managed to regain it I saw true, naked fear.
“Who told you that?” Her superior voice was only a travesty of its former self.
“A witness to your quarrel,” I said. She was looking dangerously angry now, but I chose to ignore it.
“It’s a lie! I met Carson Delhart through my husband.”
I shrugged. “There’s always a record,” I said. “The police will get it straight.”
“Get out of here! Get out of here!” She was sitting straight up in bed now, shaking her hand wildly at the door. She started from the bed, quivering all over with anger. I could understand why meek little Daisy was afraid of her if she had spells like this very often.
“Get out!” she screamed shrilly.
I was moving toward the door. “Why the excitement? Does your relationship with Delhart give your husband another motive for murder?”
“Get out!” And suddenly her violence collapsed and she sagged back on the bed, spent, and she was a worn, shaken woman who was growing old and showing it. “What difference does motive make now? The police have their proof. Why can’t they let the rest of us alone?”
All of which was a nice, tacit admission of Titus Willow’s guilt, but it didn’t satisfy me.
• • •
I found Tiffin but no Jocko when I went back to the living room. He seemed almost glad to see me and I was suspicious at once.
He came over beaming and rubbing his hands. “She’s safely away now,” he said.
“Any trouble?” I asked warily.
“Trouble? No. She was drunk. Dead drunk.” He concentrated his fishy gaze on me. “Interesting to learn how she got there.”
I saw what he was driving at. I laughed in his face. “You can’t do anything about that, Godfrey. She was there of her own free will.”
“The charge is complicity, Adeline. And maybe obstruction of justice.”
“In Multnomah County, Godfrey? What jurisdiction do you have here? And since when was I supposed to play special police for you? You’re out of the water now. There was no warrant for her arrest that I know of.”
“You knew we were hunting her.”
“Mere rumor,” I said. “And since when does a verbal statement have any effect in law?”
“Nevertheless,” he said smugly, “your Jeff Cook is in jail right now. In Teneskium County.”
XXIX
I COULDN’T GIVE Tiffin the
satisfaction of seeing my face so I turned my back and walked away. Frew was staring at me sourly and I returned the stare with equal sourness. I went to a window and glared at the pane. Jeff in jail—and I had as much as put him there! How he would love me for that. And when we had seemed so close to the solution.
I wanted to bawl for having made such a mess of things by letting Tiffin know where Glory was. But that only lasted a moment, and then my brains began to perk. The window pane reflected the room and I could see Tiffin prowling about. I could see Hilton too, he seemed to have relaxed himself as if he refusd to be disturbed by his enforced stay. His attitude gave me an idea.
I turned and went directly to him. He looked politely but noncommittally at me. “They haven’t any right to hold you,” I said softly.
“It’s less trouble than making a fuss.”
“It would be even less trouble for you to meet me at my house in three hours. Less trouble for everyone,” I added. I tried to fill my voice with innuendo.
Hilton looked irritated. I nodded meaningly and strolled away just as Tiffin charged up. “What were you saying?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing,” Hilton said.
There was nothing Tiffin could do about that so he stomped off. I followed him and cornered him. “Godfrey,” I said, “you’d better let Jeff out now. It will save me the trouble of getting a writ. You have no grounds to hold him.”
“You, Adeline, mind your own business.”
“It is my business, and that of The Press,” I said.
“By the time they know,” he said, “we’ll have the information we want.” He was so smug about it. So smug!
“You mean you dare hold him on that flimsy charge?”
“And you too,” Tiffin said. “The sheriff will be here soon—for you.”
I called him names until I got tired. The madder I got the more smug his smile. Finally I walked away.
Tiffin dogged me. And I could see by the way the policemen watched me they had their orders. Tiffin was pulling an illegal trick and it looked as if he would get away with it. And this after what I had done for him!
The longer I waited the more I could picture Jeff in jail. Maybe they were third degreeing him. I felt worse every moment. And there seemed no way out of it. Every time I moved toward a door a policeman on guard would move suggestively.
Finally I walked through Willow’s room to the bath. Tiffin was on my heels. I turned and looked coldly at him. “Here too, Godfrey?”
He was licked and so I locked the door on him. At least I had a few moments alone. It wasn’t the pleasantest place in the world. My imagination was all too vivid picturing Willow in here, standing in that tub sawing at his own wrists. I began to shake and I knew I would have to hurry and get out of here.
I forced myself over to the tub and turned on the cold water. Fortunately the tub had been wiped clean of bloodstains or I think I would have lost my nerve completely.
With the water roaring nicely, I went to the window over the basin and looked out. It was as Jeff had told me, straight down for two stories and a steep slate roof above. I moved across the room and began opening drawers and cabinets. One set of waist-high doors opened into a linen closet. A series of shelves was filled with sheets and towels and pillowcases.
I felt like an eloper, knotting sheets together. I used six, the entire pile. They were nice big linens and it was a shame to treat them this way. But I was in no mood to respect the quality of Mrs. Willow’s sheets. I knotted one end of my rope about the drain pipe of the bowl, and to make sure took a half hitch around the other pipes. Then, opening the window, I tossed out the rope.
“Appreciate me, Jeff Cook,” I muttered. I clambered onto the basin and teetered a moment and began to wriggle through the window. I could hear sounds indicative of Tiffin’s restlessness. I was halfway to the ground when he broke down the door.
I am no super-athlete. Before long my arms threatened to come loose in their sockets. I began to wish I was with Jeff in the County jail. Then I glanced up and saw Tiffin’s face above me, and I forgot about my aches. I looked down, saw only six feet of air to the ground, and I simply let go.
I took the shock with bent knees. I began to run as soon as I caught my balance. There was nowhere to go but through a hedge and into an adjoining yard. Behind me, someone blew a whistle.
I stumbled over garden stakes, skinned my knee on a low, nasty picket fence, and arrived in an alley. I was breathless by the time I staggered onto a lighted street. I began to flag passing cars. The third one stopped.
I knew I had drawn the typical masher as soon as I was inside. But behind me were policemen. I preferred to handle the masher. Anyway, he only drove three blocks before he had to make an arterial stop. There was a lighted drugstore on the corner. I jerked open the door.
“Thanks,” and I was gone. Before I had been panting too hard for him to start his line. And the one tentative pat he had tried received coy but firm slaps at his hand. I felt pretty good now.
I was in a phone booth when I realized my purse was still at Willow’s. So I had to go out and smile a nickel from the druggist. Finally I had The Press on the phone. I told them as much as I had breath for, explaining what I was going to do.
I got a happy promise of cooperation. I left the drugstore and walked back to Willow’s and gave myself up.
• • •
Jocko was beside me while I drove Jud’s car. Tiffin followed in the county sedan.
“Why’d you do it, Addy?”
“Give myself up? Well, I got in a car with a masher and even Godfrey is better than that.”
“You know what I mean,” Jocko said. “Why didn’t you give Glory up before?”
“Why did you let Tiffin talk you into pulling this arrest on Jeff and me?” I countered.
“Addy,” Jocko said sorrowfully, “if you ain’t going to play fair, why should we?”
And the conversation rested on that. It was pretty late by now and there wasn’t much traffic, so I could drive and think at the same time. I was building a fine theory. I needed to talk with Jeff and Hilton before I was sure of anything. But if all the disputable factors fit then I was sure I could put an end to this case. Not personally. I was feeling magnanimous and willing to let the police light the fuse. I was so absorbed in my thoughts I drove right by the jail and Jocko had to wake me up.
“You’re not going home yet, Addy,” he said.
“Pretty soon, Jocko.”
Jocko gave me an inquiring look. I ignored him and parked. Tiffin was right behind us. We started up the courthouse steps together. In the lighted foyer we met Jeff chatting with a thin, sharp-faced man.
Jocko stopped dead. “Addy!” he said in a pained voice. Tiffin was positively saffron with rage. Jeff grinned amiably at us.
“Got it solved, O’Hara?”
“I’ve let Tiffin take over,” I said. “He knows the right way to handle people—reporters and such.”
The sharp-faced man came up. “Mr. Cook is out on a writ. I’m warning you, Mr. Tiffin, that I have one prepared for Miss O’Hara too, should you plan to put her in jail.”
Tiffin was too anguished to talk. The lawyer tipped his hat to me. “Courtesy of The Portland Press, Miss O’Hara.” He strolled to the door, then stopped.
“Let’s go, O’Hara,” Jeff said. “We’re keeping Mr. Tiffin awake.”
“She did reach a phone,” Tiffin moaned.
Jocko said, “Favors work two ways. Let’s go see if Miss Martin is sober yet.”
“Tiffin was really sore,” I said as they walked away. “He’s desperate too or he would never have pulled such a boner.”
Jeff looked coy and blinked his eyes like a bashful maiden. “Tell me about it, my knight errant.”
“I was hungry,” I said. “And out of money. I had to get you out so you could stake me to a meal at the Chinaman’s.”
Jeff took my arm and piloted me to the car. We thanked the lawyer
and assured him we would try and stay out of jail over the week-end. Jeff drove and I filled in the ten-mile trip by giving him a resume of past events. When I came to my really foolish stunt with the sheets, he pulled the car to a complete stop.
“O’Hara-is that the truth?”
“Certainly,” I said indignantly.
“You utter damned fool,” he said flatly.
I was ready to bawl. I was tired and hungry and now I was being told off for trying to help. Then Jeff pulled me close and kissed me thoroughly. “Don’t ever try a trick like that again,” he said when he was through.
“I’m forgiven?”
“Of course,” he said. “What a story! What a story!” he chortled. “We’ll crucify Tiffin.”
At least, I consoled myself, he had thought of me for a moment. Jeff started the car again and I went back to my theorizing. But I was too weary to concentrate much. It wasn’t until we had finished a refreshing meal, just getting out as the Chinaman closed his doors at twelve, that I began to perk up.
I had told Jeff of my attempt to get Hilton to come to my place. We went there now. We still had a few minutes to wait and Jeff used it telephoning. When he was through he came and flopped wearily beside me on the couch.
“Willow’s condition is unchanged,” he said. “But there’s a chance of his pulling through—to decorate a noose.”
“Hold it,” I said. “Isn’t that a car?”
It was. We could hear the motor a block away. A car was a rare thing at that hour. We both held our breaths, listening to the sound come closer. The car hesitated at the corner. Then the noise was intensified and I knew someone was coming this way. I rose and turned on the porch light. The car stopped across the street. I went outside where I could be seen.
The car door slammed. It was dark but I was sure it was Hilton coming toward me. Jeff’s arm reached from the doorway and he caught hold of my shoulder and pulled me inside.
“Waiting to get shot?” he demanded.
“It’s Hilton,” I said.
“I repeat my question,” Jeff said. When footsteps came up the walk he kept me back and opened the door himself. He was much more cautious than I. It was Hilton, and he came in unarmed and nodding pleasantly.
Give Up the Body Page 22
