Something blue

by Charlotte Armstrong

  "ril follow you, sir.'' The lawyer looked at Johnny's tight face and said no more.

  In the o£Bce, the lawyer told his switchboard to hold all calls. "Well?"

  "I've been to see Clinton McCauley."

  "Ah . . ." The lawyer sagged. His gray hair was a little startling above a sun-browned face. "I've been worrying about that ever since the boat docked. Emily turned to you, then? What does McCauley say?"

  "What do you say," asked Johnny, "about this engagement?"

  "I am horrified," said Copeland quietly.

  "You think Bartee is the killer? You think McCauley is right?"

  "No, I do not. But that makes no difference. I am horrified, just the same."

  Johnny felt a little surge of confidence in the man. Still, he said severely, "What were you thinking of when you introduced them?"

  "I couldn't help that," Copeland said. "I'll tell you about it. Dick Bartee came up one day last fall, to deliver a letter from his grandfather by hand. First time I had met

  him. He was pleasant. I was cordial. That was that.

  "About two months ago, he popped in again. Wanted advice. What did I know about some business people around this town? While we were talking, right here, Nan Padgett happened to come in with some papers. You know she's in the stenographer's pool, but she is rather my protege. I be-Heve she said, Tou wanted these, Mr. Copeland?' and I said, Thank you, Miss Padgett,' and that was absolutely all that was said. Oh, I suppose Nan smiled, as she naturally would, at the boss' guest. I did not introduce them to each other.

  "Well, same day, Bartee asked me to lunch with him. I said I was rushed, but if he didn't mind eating in a hurry at my regular place . . . He said he didn't mind, so we went across the street. Now Nick's is mobbed but I have a table reserved every day, as I think I told him. We started past a long hne of people waiting, and there, wedged in the crowd, were Nan and Dorothy Padgett. Bartee stopped in his tracks. He said something hke, This yoimg lady mustn't starve, must she? Isn't there room for her too?' And before I could open my mouth he'd yanked up the velvet rope and Nan and Dorothy had ducked under, laughing.

  "Well, I'm kind of uncle to them, you know. They've eaten at my table often enough. What was I to do? Say 'No, you can't sit at my table today.' Could I explain why not? Could I say, 'Because I don't want you to meet this man.' And could I have said why I didn't? I was stuck, I tell you. It happened so fast. Scattered my wdts. So l just put the best face I could on it. I introduced them and we had lunch, the four of us. Dick Bartee, it seemed to me, wasn't too much impressed. Anyhow, I suppose I assumed he'd go for Dorothy.

  "Dorothy?''

  "Why, yes. She gets the whistles."

  "That's right. I guess she does."

  "Nan's a sweet kid," Copeland said, "but Dorothy's a stunner. So we talked about everything but personahties. I saw to that. Then, it was over and everyone parted and I thought that was all. Had no idea he went on seeing Nan. I've been away over a month. Emily was gone, too, or she'd have stopped it. I wouldn't have had it happen."

  Johimy chewed his Up.

  The lawyer was staring at his polished desk. "Does Mc-Cauley want Nan told now? Does he want me to teli her?"

  "What do you think of McCauley?" Johnny asked.

  "I know the man's got this obsession . . ."

  "Is it just an obsession?''

  "I don't know. But if he says. Tell her' I will tell her. Does he say so?"

  Johnny said, "Would you tell me about this money first? How much money is coming to Nan?"

  "Plenty," Copeland said, and named a sum that made Johnny whistle. "It's supposed to be an inheritance from her dead parents—through Emily, handled by me. AH fixed years ago."

  "Then it just comes to her?"

  "Yes. At Emily's death. Or Nan reaching twenty-one. Whichever's first. It is hers, right now."

  "Do you think Dick Bartee knew about that money?" The lawyer bhnked. "Could he have known?" Johnny pressed.

  "The old man was supposed to keep the secret. I'm almost certain that he did."

  "Why should Dick Bartee dehver a letter by hand? And what was in the letter? Was Nan's name in there?"

  The law)'er stared. "I don't know why he brought it instead of mailing it. I don't think her name was there." The lawyer began to look startled. "I see what you mean. He did . . . yes, he did force that introduction. But the girls being in the restaiu-ant—that was just coincidence."

  "Was it?" said Johnny.

  "Of course, it . . . Wait a minute. He could have set out to cultivate me. If he knew that Nan worked in my office, he could have figured to find an opportunity to force an introduction, sooner or later, somehow. That's the way your mind's working?"

  "I'm wondering," Johrmy admitted.

  Copeland sent for the letter that Dick Bartee had de-hvered for his grandfather.

  Dear Mr. Copeland: (it went)

  Since you tell me Miss McCauley has not spent the the yearly allowance I've sent the child tliese seventeen years, and since you say it now amounts to a sizeable fortune, and since the child, now twenty years of age,

  will come into this money in, at the least, another year, and is fully protected in the event of Miss McCauley's death by coming into the money at that time, if necessary—I write to announce that I have sent the last amount I shall send. The child is provided for. I am old. And faihng.

  Having, therefore, just drafted what I am quite sure will be my final will, I want you and Miss McCauley to know that neither she nor the child receive any bequest therin, nor are they mentioned therein by any name. This means that upon my death, no one need discover the name Miss McCauley and the child now use. And no one can connect the girl with the terrible and pitiable past.

  I believe that my duty in the whole matter has been discharged to Miss McCauley's satisfaction. I will say to you, and to Miss McCauley, whom I admire, that I now agree her course has been most kind and vsdse. I wish the httle girl all happiness.

  Yours sincerely, Bartholomew Bartee

  'Decent letter," said Johnny. '^And no Padgett named."

  Copeland said slowly,. "The information about the money is there, isn't it?"

  "Had the letter been tampered with?"

  "I can't say." The lawyer thought of something that relaxed him. "But he would have no way to find" out where Nan was or under what name she and Emily were hving."

  Johnny said pityingly, "I guess you don't have snooper's blood."

  "What do you mean? How could he? There are no records he could get at. I'll swear to that. And I never told him."

  "Nobody had to teU hun. There is one person he could locate, all right."

  "Whor

  "Clinton McCauley.''

  "Well . . . yes."

  "Emily said she went to see her brother once a month."

  "Yes."

  "Didn't Emily fight for her brother at the time of that crime? Wasn't she there, in Hestia?"

  "Yes, she was."

  "So Dick Bartee had seen her? Might know her when he saw her again?" "Possibly."

  "What's to stop Dick Bartee from hangnng around watching who visits the prison? He'd certainly have a clue as to what she'd look like. Then, when he spots Emily, following her home? Then he knows where she lives and under what name. Wait a minute. Two girls!" Johnny jerked upright. "How could he know which girl was going to get the money? The names were changed."

  The lawyer sat still and closed his eyes. In a moment he opened them and said, "Maybe I can tell you how. Listen. When we had lunch that day I said we talked about impersonal stufiF, One impersonal topic was politics. Dick Bartee said to the girls, 1 don't suppose you pretty young things can vote yet?' "

  "And Dorothy said, "I can; she can't.' "And Nan said, 'But in another year, I can.' "So he knew which girl by her age, of course." "Uh huh," said Johnny.

  "We will have to tell Nan right away," Copeland said anxiously.

  "We haven't got McCauley's permission to tell her yet." "WhatI He's the one who swe
ars Dick Bartee killed his wiiel"

  "Now he wants to believe different," Johnny said. "To spare Nan. Not to break her heart. He wants to be shown that he has been wrong."

  Copeland stared. "He's been wrong," he said shortly. "I never could believe the boy did it. But what does he mean?" "I'm to check. I've already tested that ahbi." Johnny told about George Rush. "Trouble is," Johnny confessed, "this Rush is very sour on Bartee. Could be just malice. And he won't swear. Doesn't mean much?" He looked at the man of law.

  "No," said the lawyer. "Nothing."

  "That's why I haven't called Father Klein. I don't have an'thing either way."

  "We are going to have to do something about stopping this marriage," Copeland fumed. "Tell Nan he's after her money."

  "Ve haven't a grain of proof that he is" said Johnny. "Look at the way it seems. Bartee meets you because his grandfather does business with you. He meets Nan through you. He falls for her. That's simple. Easy to grasp. Happens every day. What are we going to tell her? Something complicated. We say Bartee maneuvered the whole thing, ferreted her out, got himself introduced to her, because he knew she had money. Also, when we say he wants her money, we are saying he doesn't want her. And that is something Nan may not want to believe." Johnny knew this with a sickening certainty.

  "What are you suggesting?" Copeland said rather angrily.

  "I would like the proof" said Johnny. "If Clinton Mc-Cauley is sick and obsessed, I'd hke to be sure of that. And if not, then I'd like to get Bartee for the murder of Christy McCauley, if he did it. And get Nan's father out of prison, by the way. It scarcely seems enough, just to break up a romance. Does it?"

  "No," said Copeland. "Not if Bartee is guilty. But even if he isn't guilty of anything but fortune-hunting—I tell you I don't like this marriage."

  "If Bartee is a killer and I can prove it, that will stop the marriage,^ut good" Johnny said. "I thought I -could' scavenge around. While there is time. I've done this, although never for real, iii exactly the same way."

  "You think you can turn up anything?"

  "McCauley wants me to try."

  "Let's talk to McCauley."

  "O.K. I'll drive you over. Let me call Father Klein."

  When Johnny got the chaplain on the Hne, Father Klein broke in. "McCauley is in the infirmary. He's gone about out of his mind. The dilemma . . ."

  Johnny stiffened. "What am I going to do, then? I promised to wait for his permission. But a decision, about telling the girl, is going to have to be made pretty soon."

  "McCauley does not want her told at all."

  "What!"

  "Last clear thing he said to me. He realizes that he has judged Dick Bartee without proof. And that is wrong."

  "But, listen to mel" Johimy began to explain about the money.

  The chaplain was not the man for understanding about money. He broke in. "McCauley said that unless there is courtroom proof . . ."

  "He must be out of his mind," snapped Johimy. "Doesn't he claim a court found him guilty?"

  "Yes, but he understands , . ."

  "Look here, sir. You say he's about out of his mind?"

  "The man is trying to beheve what he does not beUeve," said the chaplain severely.

  "I have to do something," Johnny said. "Tell me what I am to dol"

  The chaplain said, in a moment, "You care for this girl, his daughter? You have her welfare at heart?"

  "I do. I have." Johnny's voice began to shake with foreboding.

  "Yes, I thought so. I will say this to you. If you ever become personally certain that this man Dick Bartee is a murderer, then feel released from your promise. Make it your responsibility to decide."

  "Mine?" said Johnny.

  "Mr. Copeland may help you some. But I rather think the dead lady—the girl's aunt—gave it to you."

  "I'll—do the best I can," choked Johnny.

  He hung up. The lawyer, who had been listening in, said sympathetically, "I'll help you tell her."

  But Johnny said angrily, "You heard? McCauley is out of his mind?"

  "Yes. Sad."

  "Did you hear Father Klein say whether to tell her? Yesterday he thought we must. How long do you think McCauley may have been out of his mind? We don't know, said Johnny. "We are basing an awful lot of theory on that man's integrity. If it weren't for McCauley, would it have crossed our minds that Bartee read a letter? Or plotted to meet Nan? Or any of it?"

  "Why don't you—er—hunt around a little?" the lawyer said unhappily. "I guess it's true enough that we can always break her heart another day."

  Johnny bought himself two sandwiches and a small carton of milk. He drove to the park where he sat on a bench, ate one-and-a-half sandwiches and fed the other half to some birds. During tliis time he tried not to thinjc at all. At the

  end of the time, a sentence came clear and cool into his head, and he knew exactly what he was going to do.

  He drove to the fat-walled stucco fortiess where Roderick Grnncs lived.

  "I've got an old murder case," Johnny told him, "that I am going to dig into for reasons of my own. I don't ask you to take an interest at all but I do a.sk you this: Would you be willing to say, to anyone who inquires, that I'm working on it for you?"

  Roderick Grimes took him by his lapels. "Come in here. If you think you are going to say no more—Sit down. Expound."

  Johnny sat down. "You can't use this," he warned. "Or even talk about it. I'll have to have your word. Any decision to talk has to be mine." Mine, his heart echoed.

  "Granted."

  So Johnny expounded.

  "You're right," Grimes said at the end. "It's possible, and even probable, that this McCauley is slightly off his rocker. A guilty man who has made up a fantasy to bury the guilt under. Either so that he can see himself as a noble martyr, or because this makes the punishment he desperately needs all the more Qjuel." -'•

  John nodded unhappily.

  "On the other hand, your Dick Bartee sounds like—what was that phrase?—a ring-tailed doozer, all right. According to Rush."

  "Yeah," said Johnny miserably.

  "I'll back you up," said Grimes. "I'll even—No, I won't either. I was going to say I might even come down and throw my weight around. But I can't ofiFer. Know why?"

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm the armchair type," said Grimes, "creaking back, neither young nor spry, nor foolish. All's safe enough, if McCauley's a psycho. But hasn't it occurred to you that Dick Bartee, if he's a killer, may not sit still while you snoop among his Httle secrets?"

  "He's not going to murder me" scoffed Johnny.

  "My boy," said Roderick Grimes quaintly, "you could be murdered and you'd never know it. Well, report to me, mind. Of course, if I can't use it, I won't pay you."

  "I realize that," Johnny grinned.

  "Meanwhile," promised Roderick Grimes, "I'll do you another favor. I will sit here and think about it." Johnny felt comforted, somehow.

  CHAPTERS

  Johnny spent the rest of the day hunting old newspapers and magazine indices for accounts of the murder of Christy McCauley, in Hestia, Cahfomia, seventeen years ago. A no-good, drunken, womanizing bum had killed his young wife. Only the prominence of the Bartee family gave the stale plot much news value. Nothing new.

  He walked into his parents' house about eight o'clock in the evening and was shocked stock-still on the carpet by the sight of his father at the card table, playing a placid game of Russian Bank with a pretty girl named Dorothy Padgett.

  "Where's Nan?" Johnny said.

  Dorothy turned her head and smiled. "Surprisel" she said. "Your dear mama said I must come . . ."

  "She certainly mustn't stay alone," said Barbara Sims, busthng in.

  "Where's Nan?" Johnny repeated. His feet had not moved another inch.

  "Oh, she flew home with Dick," said Dorothy cheerfully. "He had to go back and he didn't want to leave her and she's never met his folks, you know. He thought it would be good for her to get away."
r />   "So I brought Dorothy home with me, of course," said his mother. "Where have you been all day? Have you had any food?"

  "You say they flew?" Johnny almost could not get his next

  words out. "You don't think they went by way of Nevada?"

  Dorothy looked shocked. His mother said reproachfully,

  "You can't think Nan would elopel The day Emily was

  buried? Nan wouldn't do that."

  Dorotliy said, "At least, she didn't. She called me and they're safe on the ground in Hestia." She watched him.

  Johnny sat limply down. Maybe there wasn't as much time as he'd thought there would be. He was scared.

  "Have they ... set a date?" he asked painfully, looking at nothing but his mother's carpet.

  "I'll be in charge of the wedding," Dorothy said, "whenever it is."

  "When will it be?" he insisted.

  "Oh, I suppose soon. Nan won't want anything but a very simple wedding. No splash. Because of Emily . . ."

  "Simple and soon, huh?" he murmured.

  Dorothy turned and cards fell out of the pattern on the table and landed on the floor. "What's the matter, Johrmy?"

  Johnny's father began patiently to pick up the cards.

  "I've been with Roderick Grimes," said Johnny, "and he gave me a job."

  "Well?" said his mother impatiently. "You know, Johnny, you are going to have to get used to the idea that Nan w going to marry this man."

  Johnny's gi-een eyes flickered at her. "Grimes wants me to dig up the dope on another old case. Happened years.^go.-In Hestia." ^

  "For goodness sakesl"'his mother said.

  His father stopped shuffling cards.

  "A young woman named Christy McCauley was hit on the head one night—in the Barter's house."

  He heard them gasp.

  "Her husband's in prison for doing the deed," Johnny tried to be Hght, "but Grimes thinks—oh, you know, the usual. More to it than meets the eye."

  "Johnny, you can't do this," his mother said.

  "Yes, I can, Ma," he replied gravely. "If I don't, somebody else will."

  "You should let somebody else, then," his mother said severely. "You, of all people, as close as you've been to Nan, can't go down there and bother those Bartees about an old tragic thing they'd surely rather forget."