21-Not I, Said the Sparrow

by Lockridge, Richard

  “At the party you did. You didn’t tell him then you were going to marry Jameson? Before Jameson made that—that announcement of his?”

  “I didn’t want him to,” she said. “Not that way. It—it seemed a very old-fashioned way. Rather—oh, I don’t know. Theatrical? You were there, weren’t you? At the party?”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “So it came as a surprise to Mr. Rankin. As far as you know, anyway. An unpleasant surprise, Miss Selby? Even, perhaps, a rather shattering surprise?”

  She said she did not know what he meant. She said, “‘Shattering,’ Inspector? What a strange word to use. As if—” Again she did not finish.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “As if he were shocked by what you were going to do.”

  She shook her head in bewilderment. Or a simulation of bewilderment?

  “Why should he have been, Inspector? I told you we were—we are—friends. Jeff—why, Jeff would want me to be happy.” She paused. “And we would have been happy, Arthur and I. You talk as if—you talk as if you think there was something between Jeff and me. We were just friends. I keep telling you that. Friends and relatives. Anything else would have been—would have been impossible. Surely you—”

  She stopped, this time because Heimrich was slowly shaking his head.

  “No,” he said. “Not impossible, Miss Selby. And yes, I do think there was something more between the two of you than casual friendship and distant relationship.”

  She had been relaxed in her chair until then. Then her slim body stiffened. She grasped both arms of the chair, as if she were about to pull herself out of it. Her lips began to move, but for seconds no words came from them. Finally she spoke, but in a voice so low. Heimrich could barely catch the words. He thought they were, “You’re crazy,” but he could not be entirely sure. Then she pulled herself forward to the edge of the chair.

  “You’re trying to make out that Jeff was jealous, aren’t you?” she said, and now her voice rose and the words were no longer indistinct. “That’s what you came here to ask about, isn’t it? Not all this about Janet. You’re—you’re trying to drag Jeff into it, aren’t you? All right, aren’t you?”

  “We don’t drag people into things, Miss Selby,” Heimrich said. His voice was very soft. “If they’ve dragged themselves into things we try to find out about it. That’s all, Miss Selby.”

  “You’re awful,” she said. “Cruel and awful.”

  Then she leaned forward in the chair and put her hands over her face and began to cry.

  “No,” Heimrich said, and stood up. “Just a cop, Miss Selby.”

  She did not answer and did not look at him. She merely sat in the chair, her body shaking.

  Merton Heimrich left her so.

  13

  There was no rush of business in the taproom of the Old Stone Inn when Heimrich went into it at a little after noon. There was, indeed, no business at all except for Lieutenant Charles Forniss, sitting at a corner table farthest from the bar. Tom, Dick or Harry—I’ve really got to find out what the man’s name is, Heimrich thought—said, “I’ll bring it right over, Inspector,” to Heimrich’s order of a martini, very dry. Heimrich went over to the corner table and sat down with Forniss.

  “Frankel says he didn’t see them start off that afternoon,” Forniss said. “Says he went over and saddled up the horses and went back to planting glads. Says he didn’t hear the Jeep start up. Rankin won’t admit he wanted—wants now at a guess—to marry Miss Selby. But he did and does, I’m pretty sure. Does admit her mother broke up whatever was going on between them. Convinced Miss Selby it wouldn’t be ‘seemly.’ Word he used, M. L. Not, he keeps on saying, that there was ever anything to break up.”

  Tom, Dick or Harry brought Merton Heimrich’s martini. It had an olive in it. I’ve really got to learn this man’s name, Heimrich thought, as he fished the olive out. He rather likes olives when they are not contaminating martinis, so he ate it.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I got pretty much the same story from Dorothy Selby. Pretty much the same impression, too. And that Rankin didn’t know she was going to marry Jameson until Jameson announced it. Too theatrically, she thinks. She’s damned right on that. Lord of the manor most graciously agrees to marry an underling. Oh, he said all the right words. Just—left a feeling.”

  He sipped from his drink. The olive hadn’t really damaged it too much. Of course the tang of the lemon peel oil was missing.

  “Came as quite a jolt to Rankin, I’d think,” Forniss said. “Assuming he didn’t really know beforehand. Or—suspect beforehand, M. L.?”

  Heimrich nodded his head slowly. He said, “Of course, he may have suspected, Charlie. And brought a bow and arrow along in the trunk of his car. A bit far-fetched. But possible, naturally. The nearest we’ve got to a motive, far’s I can see. Wouldn’t be the first time a man’s knocked off a successful rival.”

  “Not by some thousands,” Forniss said. “And Dr. Tennant may merely have lost his footing on those stairs and grabbed at the railing and—bango. And Mrs. Jameson’s horse may have balked the jump and she went over his head into the wall. And Dorothy Selby may actually have told Rankin she was going to marry the old boy. And he may have picked up a bow and some arrows at the Selby house. They leave them lying around.”

  “She says he didn’t even get out of his car when he stopped by to be guided to the Jameson party. Also, the arrows we saw there were wooden arrows, not steel.”

  “Yep,” Forniss said, and finished his drink. He said, “You going to have another, M. L.?”

  Heimrich shook his head. Forniss flicked a hand at Tom, Dick or Harry and pointed at his glass.

  “Of course,” Forniss said, “a steel arrow wouldn’t be hard to get rid of. You could just stick it in the ground, I’d think.”

  “About Janet Jameson,” Heimrich said, and regarded his almost-empty glass. He was, he realized, having second thoughts about it. The bartender came across the still-empty room carrying a tray with a glass on it, and ice in the glass, and a small pitcher of water and a jigger glass of bourbon. Heimrich let his second thought prevail and gestured toward his glass. He continued to look at his empty glass.

  “About Janet Jameson?” Forniss said, and poured the contents of the jigger onto the ice in the squat glass and added a very little water.

  “She may have ridden over the rise as Miss Jameson says she did,” Heimrich said. “But then she may have rowed across and gone up the stairs to meet somebody. There may have been a quarrel and she may have got pushed down the stairs. Whoever pushed her may have rowed her body back across and lugged it down to the stone fence and arranged it for Miss Jameson to find.”

  “Yep,” Forniss said. “We both thought of that, didn’t we? And there’d have been time enough. And she didn’t weigh very much.”

  Heimrich looked at him and said, “No, Charlie?”

  “Both the Frankels say she was little,” Forniss said. “Mrs. Frankel says she couldn’t have weighed over a hundred pounds.” He drank from his glass. He said, “This Ronald Jameson. The old man’s son. He’s a pretty husky guy, M. L.”

  Heimrich agreed that Ronald Jameson was a pretty husky guy. “Jameson was fond of his father’s wife,” Heimrich said. “Far as he’ll go, naturally.”

  “And got damn annoyed when you asked him about it,” Forniss said. “You think it was Jameson she went up the stairs to meet? And that he pushed her down them? Not what you’d do to somebody you were fond of, I wouldn’t think. Still—”

  “Yes, Charlie,” Heimrich said. “People do quarrel. Get angry and do things they don’t really mean to do.”

  “What we’d come up with,” Forniss said, “is two violent deaths with nothing to tie them together. Except happening at the same place. This place they call The Tor.”

  “Not tidy, no,” Heimrich said, and thought how unlikely words tend to get stuck in the mind. “Too bad, in a way, that young Jameson doesn’t get a lot of money from his father’s estate. Make thi
ngs simpler, that way.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know about his father’s will,” Forniss said. “Maybe he thought he’d get the lot. If his father didn’t marry Miss Selby. That would have made a difference. Anyway, he could have thought it would.”

  Heimrich said, “Yes, Charlie,” but not as if he had been listening very closely.

  Forniss heard the inattention in the inspector’s voice. He said, “All right. All we’ve got is theories.”

  Heimrich said, “Yes,” again. Then he said, “They keep that fireplace going a lot in the living room, don’t they? Or drawing room, whatever Miss Jameson calls it. She likes warm rooms, of course. Probably her brother did, too.”

  Forniss used a forefinger to swish ice cubes in his glass. When Heimrich did not continue, he said, “Yeah, M. L.?”

  “Oh,” Heimrich said, “A handy place to burn a wooden bow, is all. It had turned chilly Sunday morning. Could be Barnes had a fire going early, before the family got down.”

  “Or fires,” Forniss said. “There’s a fireplace in the dining room too. One in the old boy’s office, which doesn’t look as if it’s been used much lately. One in Miss Jameson’s dressing room, too. Built before the day of central heating, the house was. Forced hot air now. Must have cost Jameson plenty to have it put in. Place like that. Built the way it probably is.”

  “We’d better ask Barnes about the fires Sunday morning,” Heimrich said. “And whether he laid them the night before, when the wind shifted. There are sporting goods stores in Peekskill, aren’t there?”

  “A couple, anyway. And God knows how many in the city. Yes, we’d better. Get the local boys on it? You think somebody bought a bow, and a handful of steel arrows maybe, specially for the occasion?”

  “The bow we found was about ready to fall apart,” Heimrich said. “I shouldn’t think a handful of arrows, Charlie. Two, in case the first one missed, probably. Perhaps only the one, if the shooter was pretty confident and had the range set in his mind. Short range from the pier to a man in the boat. Suppose—”

  He stopped. The bartender was coming down the room with a tray with a cocktail glass on it in one hand and menu cards in the other. He put the glass down in front of Heimrich. There was an olive in the martini. He said, “Like to order, gentlemen? Not that there’s any—”

  The telephone at the bar rang.

  “Be right back,” the bartender said, and went back up the room.

  The telephone stopped ringing.

  “We go up and ask Barnes about the fires yesterday morning,” Heimrich said. “And give the locals a—”

  The bartender interrupted him, calling down the length of the taproom. He said, “For you, Inspector,” and held the telephone receiver up and waggled it in the air. Heimrich walked up the long room and spoke his name into the receiver.

  “Farmer, T. J., Inspector. At the hospital up here. In—”

  “Yes, Tom,” Heimrich said to Detective Sergeant Thomas James Farmer, assigned to Troop K headquarters in Washington Hollow. “I know where you are. Got something?”

  “Not much. Thing is, Dr. Tennant’s begun to make sounds. Just that, so far. But the nurse has called the resident. She thinks maybe the patient is beginning to come out of it.”

  “Sounds, Tom?”

  “All I could make out of it, sir. Just—oh, noises. But it was as if he was trying to say something. Not saying anything now. Yes, Doctor. Sure I will. Just one—”

  There was a pause. There was a voice in the background.

  “Sure,” Farmer said, not into the telephone. “Doctor’s just come in, Inspector. Wants the phone.”

  “Give it to him,” Heimrich said. “And stay there. If they make a fuss, stay there anyway. Tell them I’ll be along.”

  Sergeant Farmer said, “Sir,” and hung up.

  Heimrich went back to the corner table. He did not, however, sit at it. He took up his cocktail glass and drank the martini. He did not even bother to remove the olive.

  “Tennant seems to be coming out of it,” Heimrich said. “I’m going up to the hospital. You’ll—”

  “See Barnes,” Forniss said. “Get them started on places that might sell bows and arrows. Yep, M. L.”

  “And,” Heimrich said, “get yourself something to eat, huh?”

  Forniss said, “Sir,” like the Marine Corps officer he once had been. Heimrich laughed briefly and went out to the Buick. It took him only about twenty minutes to reach the Cold Harbor Memorial Hospital. It took him only another ten minutes to find a place to park the Buick. The place he found was in an area marked, “Physicians and Staff Only.”

  Dr. James Tennant’s hospital room was large—large enough, Heimrich realized, for two beds. There was only one bed it in, and a nurse and the surgical resident Heimrich had met before were standing on either side of it, the doctor leaning down over Tennant.

  Sergeant Farmer was sitting on a chair a little way from the bed. The physician turned when Heimrich went into the room and said, “Doctor—oh, it’s you again.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “He’s coming out of it, you think?”

  “Could be,” the surgeon said. “Thought you were Dr. Wenning. He’s on his way up. Look, the patient’s in no condition—”

  “I know,” Heimrich said. “I’ll just take the sergeant’s place for a while, Doctor.”

  He looked at Farmer, who shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and stood up. He said, “The barracks, Inspector?”

  “No. Get yourself something to eat and stick around.”

  Farmer said, “Sir,” as sergeant to inspector and went out of the room. Heimrich sat down in the chair Farmer had got up from. And the man in the hospital bed moaned. It was a low, broken moan.

  “You’re coming along fine, Doctor,” the surgeon said to the man in the bed. “Just fine. Dr. Wenning will be along any minute.”

  He walked to the door. Heimrich went after him and outside the door the physician stopped. Heimrich said, “Is he, Doctor? Coming along fine?”

  “Better than I expected,” the doctor said. “Anyway, I think he heard me. Just before you got here I’d told him that Dr. Wenning was on his way up and he said, ‘Frank?’ Anyway, I think that was what he said. Wenning’s first name is Frank.”

  “That’s all he’s said?”

  “Nurse Latham thought he was trying to talk,” the surgeon said. “Called me. I was just washing up, actually. Some girl smashed her car up and got thrown out. Wasn’t much hurt apparently and was sitting in the emergency ward waiting until somebody could get to her and—keeled over. Turns out her tail is full of glass and she—well, I guess she thought it wouldn’t be proper to mention it. Jesus!”

  “Yes,” Merton Heimrich said.

  “I oughtn’t to let you stay in there,” the doctor said. “When Wenning shows up he’ll probably get you thrown out.”

  “I won’t disturb the patient,” Heimrich said. “All I’ll do is listen, Doctor.”

  The physician went off down an aseptic corridor, presumably to extract broken glass from the buttocks of a modest young woman. Heimrich went back into the hospital room and closed the door after him and went to the chair Farmer had been sitting on and listened. All he heard was stertorous breathing from the bed and soft humming from Nurse Latham. He thought he might as well have had a sandwich, at least, before he came to the hospital. He thought, I didn’t know they came that modest any more. No wonder the poor kid keeled over.

  He waited for more than half an hour. Nurse Latham kept on humming, rather cheerfully under the circumstances, Heimrich thought. The man on the bed, his head only a white ball of bandages, kept on breathing, loudly at first and then more quietly. The door opened, and a tall stringy man in a white jacket which did not fit very well came into the room. He looked at Heimrich and said, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Heimrich said who he was and that he was listening.

  “Hearing anything? I’m Dr. Wenning.”

  “Just his bre
athing,” Heimrich said. “Seems he spoke your name, or tried to. Before I got here, that was.”

  Dr. Wenning said, “Mmmm,” and went over to the bed and bent down over the bandaged head. He pushed back the eyelids and looked into the eyes. He took the chart off the foot of the bed and looked at it and again said, “Mmmm.” He said, “Pressure hasn’t come up much, has it, nurse? Beat’s regular?”

  “No, Doctor. Yes, it’s regular. Soft, though.”

  “We’ll stop the sedation for a while,” Wenning said. “More just sleep now than coma, I’d say, wouldn’t you, nurse?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  The doctor nodded his head and, without turning toward Heimrich, said, “What are you listening for, Inspector?”

  “Anything he says,” Heimrich said. “You think he’ll say anything, Doctor?”

  “Eventually,” Dr. Wenning said. “Not as much damage as I was afraid there’d be. Jim just fell downstairs, didn’t he? Landed on his head?”

  “He was found at the foot of a steep flight of stairs,” Heimrich said. “Brick stairs. We assume he fell down them.”

  “So a police inspector sits in?”

  “There’s a railing down the stairs,” Heimrich said. “One section of it pulled loose.”

  “All the same,” Wenning said. “Still a bit unsteady on his legs, you know. Could account for it. Or would that be too simple?”

  “A man was killed at the Jameson house yesterday morning,” Heimrich said. “Not from falling downstairs. Mind telling me why you said ‘still,’ Doctor.”

  “Since the operation,” Wenning said. “Abdominal aortic aneurysm. Didn’t you know about that?”

  Heimrich shook his head. He said, “That being, Doctor?”

  “Permanent dilation of the aorta,” Wenning said, and walked over and stood looking down at Inspector Heimrich. “Which is the main artery of the human body. His occurred in the abdomen. Corrected by vascular surgery. Benson. One of the best men in the field. Getting along all right, Jim is. From what I hear, anyway.”