21-Not I, Said the Sparrow

by Lockridge, Richard

  He slid the sliver of metal he had taken from the wrapping across the desk toward Heimrich. Heimrich looked at it and then he looked at Forniss.

  “Yes,” Forniss said, “he thinks it could be, M. L. About the right length and right thickness, he thinks. Says he can’t be sure because he really doesn’t know much about bows. Just says it looks about the right size. It does to me, too, M. L.”

  Heimrich looked again at the sliver of metal.

  “Yes,” he said, “it does to me, Charlie. This—this wad of what’s maybe half-burned leather—your friend have any theories about it, Charlie?”

  “Most bows,” Forniss said, “apparently have a grip where you hold on to them. Sometimes just taping, he thinks. Sometimes a sort of plush. And sometimes leather. Barnes just took up enough wood for one fire, he says. So it couldn’t have been kept going. Leather doesn’t burn like wood, M. L.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “Miss Jameson says she didn’t know anything about her brother until a maid waked her up. Presumably she was alone in this suite of hers. From the layout, Charlie, do you think anybody could have sneaked in and lighted her fire? Adding a bow to it? I mean, is there a door between the two rooms?”

  “No,” Forniss said. “Just a sort of archway. And the door into the suite squeaks a little when you open it. She’d have to be a—”

  The telephone rang on Heimrich’s desk. He reached for it and, at the same time, finished Forniss’s sentence. “Pretty heavy sleeper,” Heimrich said to Forniss and, to the telephone, “Heimrich.” Then he said, “Yes, Sergeant?”

  “Nothing that means very much, far’s I can see,” Sergeant T. J. Farmer said. “But you said you wanted everything. He said a few words again. The ‘eating into your’ again.”

  “You, Sergeant? Or,‘your’?”

  “Your, way I got it.”

  “As if he were speaking to somebody else? Or remembering what he’d said to somebody else?”

  “Sort of sounded that way to me, Inspector.”

  “That was all you could make out?”

  “One other thing, Inspector. Pretty blurred. Sounded like ‘conscious,’ or something like that. Maybe just trying to say he was conscious, I guess.”

  “Could it have been ‘subconscious,’ Sergeant?”

  “Could have been almost anything,” Farmer said. “Yes, I guess it could have been ‘subconscious,’ Inspector.”

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “You in Dr. Tennant’s room now, Sergeant?”

  Farmer was not. The nurse had insisted that the telephone there be kept free. He had found a telephone down the corridor.

  “Go back and keep listening,” Heimrich said. “If Dr. Tennant says anything more—anything, Sergeant—call me—” He paused for an instant. “Call me at the Jameson house,” he said.

  He put the receiver back in its stand. Forniss was already half way up from the chair on the other side of Heimrich’s desk.

  “Yep, M. L.,” Forniss said. He wrapped the steel sliver and what smelled like burned leather in the brown paper and put the parcel in a pocket. They went out of the office and along a corridor and down to the parking lot. They went down from the barracks onto NY 11F. Heimrich didn’t push the Buick, but he kept it moving.

  They were beyond Cold Harbor when Heimrich said, “These back stairs Barnes carried the wood up. Where’s the bottom of them? In the kitchen?”

  “Hallway off it.”

  “And the top?”

  “End of the corridor Miss Jameson’s suite opens on.”

  Heimrich said, “Mmmm.”

  “This hallway at the foot of the stairs,” Forniss said. “Got a door in it; door to outside. Opens on a stoop. There’s a woodpile outside. Keep it covered with a tarp.”

  “Cement walk along the side of the house,” Forniss said. “For delivery men, I suppose. And, going away from the house, going toward the garden, there’s a path. Pine bark, looks to be.”

  Heimrich said, “Mmmm.” He turned the Buick into the driveway of The Tor. “Probably,” Heimrich said, “it connects with the path down to the lake. What Frankel calls ‘the back way’ to the lake.”

  “Yep,” Forniss said.

  The nursery truck was no longer parked in front of the big house, and from the brick staircase there was no longer the clanking of metal on metal. Repairs finished, or repairmen finished for the day. Geoffrey Rankin’s big car was not parked in the turnaround. A State Police cruiser was, with a trooper in it. The radio chattered in the car, but not loudly. The trooper got out of the cruiser when the Buick stopped beside it.

  “Mr. Rankin took off, Inspector,” the trooper said. “Stopped and said he was driving into the village if you wanted to know and that I could save gas by not following him. Said he’d be back. Maybe I should have followed him just the same, sir?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “You were right to save gas, Trooper.”

  Barnes opened the door at the first sound of the chimes. It was almost as if he had been expecting them. Yes, Miss Jameson and Mr. Jameson were at home. If they would—

  The blaring of a telephone bell interrupted him.

  “I’d better answer it,” Barnes said. “Been ringing all day. Bothers Miss Jameson.”

  He went to the telephone at the back of the entrance hall. He said, “The Tor.” He said, “Yes, he is. One moment, please,” and turned and said, “It’s for you, Inspector.”

  Heimrich walked the few steps and said, “Heimrich,” into the telephone. He said, “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “You said ‘everything,’ sir,” Sergeant Farmer said, “whether it meant anything or not. They’ve taken him somewhere for something they call a ‘brain scan.’ The nurse says it’s something that shows clots. If there are clots.”

  “All right, Tom,” Heimrich said. “You’re still in the room? He’s said something more?”

  “Well,” Farmer said, “almost, I guess. What I mean, words that are almost words.”

  Heimrich was patient. He said, “Almost what words, Tom?”

  “Once something that sounded like ‘fiddle.’ To me, anyway. There was a kind of hissing sound and then what sounded like ‘fiddle.’ The nurse thought it sounded like that too, Inspector. Grace Burton, the nurse is, the one who’s on now, I mean.”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Heimrich said. “Something that sounded like the word ‘fiddle’ with a sibilant sound before it. An ‘s’ sound?”

  “Way it sounded to me, sir. You did say everything he said. Whether it meant anything or not.”

  There was a defensive note in Sergeant Farmer’s voice.

  “Yes, Tom, everything,” Heimrich said. “That’s all he said?”

  “Sounds,” Farmer said, “as if he was trying to say something. All sort of garbled, the poor guy. Nothing I could be sure about. Once something like ‘housekeeper,’ the nurse thought. She was right by his bed. All I could hear was just sort of a sound.”

  “‘Fiddle,’” Heimrich said. “Something the nurse thought sounded like ‘housekeeper.’ Nothing else?”

  “That’s all I could get, sir. Whether it made any sense or not. That’s what you meant, wasn’t it, Inspector?”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Just stay with it, Sergeant. I’ll get you a relief by eight or so.”

  Farmer said, “Yes, sir.” He also said, “Grace got me some coffee.”

  “That’s good,” Heimrich said and hung up. He said, “If you’ll tell Miss Jameson I’d like to see her,” to Barnes.

  “Miss Jameson and Mr. Ronald are in the drawing room, sir. If you’ll just—”

  Heimrich and Forniss followed Barnes. When speech is difficult, sibilants come hardest, Merton Heimrich thought.

  Ursula Jameson and her nephew were sitting side by side on the sofa in front of the fireplace. A contented fire was burning in the fireplace, and the two had drinks on the table in front of the sofa.

  As Heimrich and Forniss walked down the room toward them, Jameson said, “Evening.” It was a gruff greetin
g. Ursula Jameson did not say anything, but she looked at them. Then she nodded her head.

  When the two big men reached the sofa, Ursula Jameson did speak. She said, “Something more, Inspector? Sit down, both of you. I’ll have Barnes—”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “We don’t want anything, Miss Jameson. Yes. One or two things more.”

  “Oh, what about poor Jim, Inspector? Jim Tennant? They won’t tell us anything at the hospital. They don’t even tell Estelle anything.”

  “The doctors are optimistic about Dr. Tennant,” Heimrich said. “Expect him to recover fully, they tell me.”

  “He’s still unconscious, isn’t he? That’s what they mean when they say he’s resting comfortably, isn’t it?”

  “They think he’s beginning to recover consciousness,” Heimrich said. “At any rate—”

  Ursula Jameson interrupted him. Her voice was quick. “You mean he’s begun to talk?” she said. “Is that what you mean?” The question was abrupt.

  Heimrich did not answer the abrupt question. He said, “Lieutenant, you might get that statement from Mr. Jameson now. I’m sure Miss Jameson won’t mind your using the typewriter in her brother’s office.”

  Ursula Jameson merely looked fixedly at the fire.

  Forniss said “Sir” as a Marine Corps captain acknowledges an order from a Marine Corps colonel. There was no uncertainty in the word. What was in Charles Forniss’s mind was another matter.

  “About the event of two years ago last May,” Heimrich said.

  Forniss said “Sir” again. He said, “Mr. Jameson—?”

  The heavy-set black-haired man stood up, slowly. He said, “A lot of damn nonsense, for my money.”

  “We’re supposed to get things written down,” Heimrich told him. “They like things on paper, Mr. Jameson. Get the statement out of the way and you can get back to town as you’ve been wanting to. Shouldn’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes, the statement shouldn’t.”

  Jameson said, “O.K.,” and went down the long room. Forniss went after him.

  Ursula Jameson continued to look at the slow-burning fire. Heimrich said nothing until Jameson and Lieutenant Forniss had gone through the doorway at the end of the long room.

  “Dr. Tennant has said a few words,” Heimrich told the black-clad woman, who did not turn toward him, who looked only at the ebbing fire. “Tried to, anyway. Not much sense to them, I’m afraid. Unless you can help us, perhaps.”

  She said, “Words? What words? How could I possibly help?”

  “Something that sounded like ‘eating into,’” Heimrich told her. “May have been speaking of his own pain, of course. Although he’s had shots to stop the pain. And something that sounded, to his nurse, like the word ‘housekeeper.’ Mean anything to you, Miss Jameson?”

  She was listening. But she merely shook her head.

  “And what sounded to the man we have in the room with Dr. Tennant like ‘fiddle,’” Heimrich said. “Before that, a word which wasn’t really a word, a sort of hissing sound, our man thought. As if he were trying to say a word with an ‘s’ sound in it. As if—”

  Ursula Jameson did not look away from the fire. She seemed to speak to the fire. The simple word she said was a mumble, was hardly more distinct than the words spoken by James Tennant had been. “I can’t hear you, Miss Jameson,” Heimrich said.

  She did not turn from the fire, but she spoke again. The words were a little clearer.

  “‘Second,’” Ursula Jameson said. “Second fiddle.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I thought it might be. Remembering words he spoke to you, isn’t he? Before he went out after lunch for his regular walk. Some hours before, I’d think. Because you’d have needed time. Not too much, probably. The rail came loose quite easily, I’d think. The rail he trusted to.”

  She looked at him then. Her dark eyes seemed very deep in her long, wrinkled face.

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Ursula said. The words were quite clear now. They were even a little loud.

  “What Dr. Tennant said to you before his accident,” Heimrich said. “After he told you why he thought you had killed your brother. When he was telling you, as a psychiatrist and a man who knew you well, what he thought had happened to your mind. What had been eating into it for years. Wasn’t it that way, Miss Jameson?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “You must be—you must be insane, Inspector.”

  Heimrich shook his head slowly.

  “No,” Heimrich said. “Not I, Miss Jameson. You did kill your brother, didn’t you? Because you couldn’t let happen to you again what had happened so much of your life. All of your life, almost. Playing second fiddle to two women who—what, Miss Jameson? Usurped what you felt was yours? What was all you really had. Isn’t that what Dr. Tennant told you? Before you tried to kill him so he couldn’t tell anybody else? Tell me, for one. Arranged for him to fall down that staircase? You’d done that before, hadn’t you?”

  She did not answer. She sat motionless, gazing into the dwindling fire.

  It was growing dusky in the room. The lights needed turning on. The fire needed building up. Momentarily, Heimrich thought of ringing for Barnes. But it was not his house. The house belonged to the black-clad woman. In the dimming light, her profiled face was like some grotesque mask.

  Merton Heimrich wanted to stand and leave the room; wanted to get his mind out of the shadows creeping over it. Inspector Heimrich could not leave the room. He had to go on with it.

  “He kept on bringing strangers in, didn’t he?” Heimrich said. “New women, new wives, for you to keep house for. Your house. The house you had lived all your life in. Were you born here in The Tor, Miss Jameson?”

  He waited a second for her to answer. She did not.

  “He was going to bring another wife here,” Heimrich said. “To be—I suppose you thought of it as mistress of your house. You killed him to stop that, didn’t you? Answer me, Miss Jameson.”

  She did not answer him.

  “You killed his second wife, didn’t you? Pushed her down the stairs and went down after her to be sure she was dead. Was she, Miss Jameson, or did you have to finish the job?”

  Again he waited for an answer. He waited without much hope. But the woman spoke from her grotesque mask—the ugly woman whose brother had twice brought beauty into the house and had planned once more to bring youth and beauty in.

  “She was dead,” Ursula Jameson told the fire. Heimrich could just hear the dead voice.

  He waited for her to go on. She merely stared toward the fire. But it was not really a fire any more.

  “Rowed her body across to the other side,” Heimrich said. “Rowed back in the boat and got the Jeep and went around by the road. Got her body into the Jeep and took it down to the wall and arranged it there. Untethered the horses you’d had Frankel saddle. Left one near the wall and the other near the stable. And drove back in the Jeep to tell about this terrible accident. That’s the way it was, wasn’t it?”

  She turned from the fire then and faced Heimrich.

  “There is nothing you can prove, is there?” she said, and her voice was strong. It was high-pitched but it was strong.

  “About Janet Jameson’s death, no,” Heimrich said.

  “About any of this,” she said. “You’re just making it all up, aren’t you? To frighten an old woman. This is my house, Inspector. Get out of it. Get out of my house.”

  She almost screamed the words at him.

  Heimrich merely shook his head. He looked down the long room. Lieutenant Forniss was standing with his back to a closed door. Heimrich beckoned with his head, and Forniss walked up the room.

  “The package, Charlie,” Heimrich said, and Forniss gave him the cylinder of brown paper. Heimrich’s fingers twisted it open.

  “Miss Jameson,” Heimrich said, “it was just between us before. Now Lieutenant Forniss is a witness. He will take notes of what you say. You do not need to say anything without having
a lawyer present. Because, Miss Jameson, I am going to arrest you on a charge of murder.”

  She only looked at him. He held the strip of steel and the shapeless wad of burned leather out toward her. She looked at them and then looked up at him.

  “The steel backing of the bow you used,” Heimrich said. “What’s left of the leather grip. Didn’t you know there was steel backing in your bow when you burned it in your fireplace? After you used it to kill your brother?”

  She leaned toward the proof he was holding out for her to see.

  “Steel?” she said, and her voice was muffled again. “Steel? But that was the arrow, wasn’t it? The steel arrow. The steel—”

  Then she fell sidewise on the sofa. Forniss caught her, or she would have fallen off it.

  “Fainted,” Heimrich said. “Better ring for Barnes. Have him get one of the maids to get her upstairs.”

  Forniss went to the dangling plush cord and pulled on it.

  “And for God’s sake,” Heimrich said, “find a switch and let’s get some light in this damn place.”

  Charles Forniss found a light switch.

  15

  Forniss moved Ursula Jameson so that she lay on the sofa and felt for her pulse. Heimrich went to the telephone. He called the Bureau of Criminal Investigation at the headquarters of Troop K in Washington Hollow and told the duty officer how things stood and what he wanted. He wanted Sergeant Farmer relieved at the hospital. He wanted troopers at The Tor. They were to report to Lieutenant Forniss. He called the hospital and got Farmer. Dr. Tennant was sleeping. He had not said, or tried to say, anything more. Farmer was told his relief was on the way. Farmer said, “Sir.”

  Heimrich put the telephone in its cabinet. Forniss had come up the room and was standing beside him. Heimrich said, “Yes, Charlie?”

  “She doesn’t seem to be coming out of it,” Charles Forniss said. “And her pulse feels fluttery. Maybe—”

  Barnes knew the name of the doctor. “Not that either of them needed a doctor very often.” Dr. Jenkins answered his telephone. He listened. “Ursula’s tough as nails,” he said. “Of course she’s been under a hell of a strain. Oh, all right, I suppose I’d better. Damn. About half an hour. Probably be O.K. by the time I get there, but all right.”