The Indigo Necklace

by Frances Kirkwood Crane

  “Psychological 4-A’s, you mean?”

  “I do not! I mean boys with something funny about them. But I can’t think why Toby would want Helen Clary dead. He wouldn’t want Roger Clary free to marry Carol Graham. He wants her himself.”

  “You’re our love expert, Jeanie.”

  “Oh, stop it!” I said. “I’m tired,” I said then. “My head hurts. I—I never want to hear about this evening again.” Patrick stopped undressing himself and unzipped my dress and finally tucked me in bed. He was sorry about my poor head, he had neglected me, he said, and he said I would be thoroughly spanked if I dared get up early. I said, “He’s smart. He gets French sailors to drink California wine, and it gives the Good Angel chic.” I roused up. “Maybe he’s so smart that he thought up a way to murder Helen Clary so that it would look as if Roger did it. Maybe that’s why he was here, darling. And when I was sitting on the porch, after you came, while Helen was still lying in the garden, he mumbled things in my ear against Roger....”

  “Go to sleep, my baby,” Patrick said, tenderly.

  “My, you’re nice.

  “Usually you get yourself in trouble,” Patrick explained. “This time you were trying to help.”

  I woke smelling coffee and went out just as I was, in my white-silk pajamas, to the kitchenette where Patrick was tinkering with the Silex. He had shaved already and was dressed in a khaki shirt open at the throat and cotton trousers. The Marines’ trousers have no hip pockets and therefore do elegant things for the shape, specially the long lean kind like Patrick’s. He kissed me, and since the coffee wasn’t quite ready I had a shower and returned wearing my white-terry robe. I sat down and sipped my orange juice.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “A quarter to nine.”

  I felt cheated. We hadn’t gone to bed till five. On a Sunday morning, and Patrick on liberty, too!

  “How come you’re up so early?”

  “Things on my mind, dear.”

  “You mean—last night?” Of course he did. “By the way, did you note that Captain Jonas didn’t believe that a curtain pole was what knocked me out, Pat?”

  Patrick glanced through the open doorway of the kitchenette from the living room at the French doors opening inward off the gallery, where the early morning sunshine now twinkled through the honeysuckle vines.

  “All the French doors in this house open inward. If the curtains had fallen down as you entered that room downstairs, the pole would have been deflected by the top of the open door. You might have been hit, but probably not with enough force to knock you unconscious. How far did you get inside the room?”

  “Hardly one full-sized step. Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

  “I didn’t want to frighten you, dear. You’d had the shock of finding the woman dead—you thought she was dead, so the shock was practically as tough as if she were—and then you’d been struck down. It seemed better, last night, not to discuss it. I’m telling you now because you’ve got to watch your step. Somebody may get the idea you know more than you do. You don’t, do you?”

  “No-o. I didn’t see anything suspicious, not a thing.”

  “I wouldn’t’ve left you alone last night—when I went downstairs again to help the doctors with Helen if they had needed me—if I had known then you’d been attacked. I didn’t know you’d been hit on the head till Roger picked up his case and said he’d got to fix you up. You looked pale and worried, but I thought it was from shock. Apparently I needed my own head examined.”

  “But you were kind of suspicious, for some reason, weren’t you, Pat? You searched this room before you went down. I heard you.”

  “I was thinking about the nurse. I thought she might be hanging around here, after all. I made sure that our front door was locked. At that time Uncle George was hovering about the courtyard. I thought he made an unofficial guard for our entrance from the gallery. But if I had known about your getting bumped on the head at that time I wouldn’t’ve left you here alone, Jeanie. You know that.”

  I blossomed, under such protection. I felt like a vine. I loved it. I decided, in this spasm of cloying weakness, to tell him about people walking through the apartment.

  “While you were downstairs that first time somebody came through this living room and went out by way of our veranda, dear.” Patricks brows came together. “That’s why I got up and dressed. I was dressed when you came back with Roger—when he came to examine my head. Remember? I guess you thought I had dressed because I was afraid I was missing something downstairs and meant to come down for that reason. But it was because I was scared. You see, it wasn’t the first time somebody had come through our place. But this time I heard everything. Heard the key open the door, the shutters open, the steps along our porch...”

  “I left a lamp on.”

  “Whoever it was turned it out. I turned all the lights back on when I got up to dress.”

  “Go on.”

  “There isn’t any more. I don’t know if she—he—went down our gallery stairs or not, I only heard the footsteps pass our bedroom.” I frowned at Patrick. “Maybe it was Uncle George?”

  Patrick grinned sourly.

  “He’s not very well shaped for slipping in and out of places, Jeanie. And he’s got that bad heart. He wouldn’t be floating up and down stairs without good reason, certainly.”

  “Well, he walks light as a cloud.”

  Patrick’s eyes were level and unsmiling.

  “Jeanie, why didn’t you tell me? You say it’s happened before?”

  “You love this place so. And so do I.” And anyway, I did not reiterate, for once, there was no place to move to.

  His lean face tightened. “You’re sure he entered from the hall?” I nodded. “Just when did it happen? How long after I went down, I mean?”

  “Well, I dressed after the person went through in about two shakes, and I had just got dressed when you and Roger came up, so—well, figure it out yourself.”

  “I see. Perhaps four or five minutes before I came back somebody came through this room?” I nodded. “There are only three doors opening on that hall—ours, and the one from the room where Helen Clary died, and the main door from the carriageway. No one went into the hall from Helen Clary’s room while I was there. The door was closed. So he must have come into the hall from the carriageway.” Pat’s face was grimmer than need be. “But why? Purposely to scare you?”

  “I don’t think so. He kept quiet as possible. You agree it was a he?”

  “That’s convenient. Now, let’s see. Uncle George was around the courtyard all the time, or I think so. I didn’t see Wick. Dr. Postgate and I stayed in Helens room. Roger...”

  Patrick hesitated.

  “Roger left the room to telephone the police when Dr. Postgate insisted on having the inquiry.”

  “Roger’s phone is in his bedroom, isn’t it?”

  “He didn’t use that one. I thought it was because Uncle George kept snooping around. He went over to the other wing. He was gone longer than was necessary. He said he took a few minutes to tell Miss Rita about the police and then he went with her to tell the others.”

  “Could he have slipped back down our gallery stairs without your seeing him?”

  “Definitely. But I doubt if he could have eluded Uncle George. But perhaps Uncle George wasn’t there all the time. He went to his rooms some time or other, changed out of his bathrobe into a white suit.”

  “Darling! Did Roger kill Helen?”

  Patrick slowly lit a cigarette.

  “Jeanie, Roger was there. He had the medical knowledge to do that kind of murder. He had the opportunity. He certainly had the motive.”

  I felt miserably unhappy.

  “Then you agree with Jonas?” I asked. Patrick did not answer. “But, Pat, I positively did not smell the iodoform till I came to. There was another smell when I entered the room. Something fresh and tangy.”

  “A good many medicines quite logically smell like
herbs, dear. Roger is a doctor. And the herb smell might have come from the garden.”

  Patrick got up suddenly, went into the bedroom, and came back. He carried a thick black book and a small white envelope.

  He laid the book on the table.

  He pressed the ends of the envelope between a thumb and middle finger and a small shiny blue sliver slipped out on the white tablecloth. “I was very lucky to find this,” he said, sitting down and wagging a finger at the blue sliver. “If we hadn’t gone down the front way and I had not chanced to look at the floor just when I was at a point where the light just chanced to single out this sliver I shouldn’t have seen it. It was tucked tightly down in the carpet. Been stepped on, I think.” He was being modest. He sees everything. Yet, he was being exact, as usual, because he then said, “I was around that room a good deal before you and I went back together. I kept my eyes open. But I didn’t spot this little blue thing till the light picked it up as we entered from the hall. I suppose you can guess what it is?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “It’s a vitreous stuff, a bit of opaque glass, I think. It looks and feels very tough. It is possible that it was separated from—from where it belonged by a blow.” I stared at it. It meant nothing. “It could be a fragment from a blue voodoo bead. Charm necklace, if you prefer.”

  “You mean Victorine’s?”

  “She always wore a string of blue beads.”

  “Oh.” I gazed at the sliver. “And what about the book?”

  “Lift the book.”

  I reached for the book meaning to lift it lightly, and it was all I could do with one hand to raise it just a little off the table.

  “That book has eight hundred and fifty-seven pages of thick heavy slick paper in it, Jeanie. The binding is heavy, and very tough. You will notice that one corner looks slightly crushed. It could be a first-rate blunt instrument. Has the weight, isn’t too unwieldy, has a rough cover which wouldn’t register clear fingerprints...It’s not going to help Roger very much that the tide of this book is Tice’s Practice of Medicine, Volume X.”

  I gazed at the book. Its subject was “Mental Disorders.”

  “Pat, whatever are you talking about?”

  “This is what knocked you out, I think. Maybe it was also used on Victorine. Maybe it cracked one of her beads.”

  “But Victorine went away? Where did you get the book?”

  “I kept looking around Helen’s room last night for something that might have served as a bludgeon while Jonas and Postgate were talking across the body. Now, there must have been some fear that Mrs. Clary might get violent, because there was nothing in that room that could readily be used to deal a hard blow. So when you were on the porch with Jonas, just before we went for coffee, I sneaked into Roger’s room. This was lying on the floor near that French door off the gallery. The door was still open. The curtains were still piled on the chair. The book, which was black and therefore not easily noticeable in the dim light, was exactly on the floor where it may quickly have been dropped.”

  I tried to joke about it. “Well, I’ll bet I’m the only girl who ever got blacked out by a medical book on mental trouble. That’s special. Usually it’s a poker. Or a bottle. By the way, where was Toby Wick? He was outside Helen’s room, remember, when Uncle George giggled and got invited by Detective Jonas to come on in. Maybe Toby came through this room.”

  “Shush!” Patrick said. His ears had caught a footfall before mine had. He whisked the blue sliver into the envelope and put it in his shirt pocket, and shoved the book on the third chair so that it was hidden under the table.

  Our caller was Roger Clary.

  Roger looked very haggard. He had not yet shaved. His black beard shadowed his slender, dark-eyed face.

  At my invitation he sat down on the fourth chair, which had its back toward the living room, and, after I asked twice, he accepted a cup of coffee.

  “I’ve just had the report from the autopsy,” he said to Patrick. “There were no definite post-mortem findings. Dr. Postgate phoned me. He assisted the police surgeon. He said while he was about it he looked at the brain. She hadn’t a chance, he said. The disease she had four years ago had destroyed the cortex. So no treatment could ever have cured her. Postgate signed the death certificate and a mortician has taken the body.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “For you, Roger.”

  Rogers nod was almost curt.

  “Now I’ve got to find Victorine,” he said.

  “No word from her yet?” Patrick asked. His coolness made me look up.

  Roger didn’t notice. “None. I went over to the house where she has a room, on Dauphine Street. I’ve just come from there. The police had been there this morning and had taken away a bureau drawer full of what her landlady called peculiar things. And they did this,” Roger said, his eyes bright and angry, “after the autopsy had shown that Helen died from natural causes.”

  “You could hardly say natural, could you, Roger?”

  Roger asked, “Just what do you mean?”

  “As I understand it, the post-mortem findings were merely negative. Maybe curare doesn’t leave any specific traces in the body. Some poisons don’t. But that doesn’t mean that your wife died what is called a natural death.”

  Roger’s eyebrows met.

  “I’m not concerned about that now. I’ve got to find Victorine. Uncle George overheard Jonas ask if you weren’t a detective. So I want you to help me find her.”

  Patrick said, “I’m afraid that’s a tall order, Roger.”

  “If you don’t help me—nobody will,” Roger said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “That detective, Jonas, thinks I killed Helen. He’s got a reputation for getting his man. He’s not going to let the post mortem affect his plans. He’s made up his mind I did it and his men are already after me. When I left this house I just by chance noticed a man across the street take up my trail. There was another one hanging around outside where Victorine lived. He tailed me when I left there; I sort of chased around to make sure. He shadowed me. The colored woman who is Victorine’s landlady told me that the police asked her a lot of questions about me—asked her what Victorine had said about me and if Victorine had ever told her that I wanted to get rid of Helen. It doesn’t help any that Victorine never says anything about anything. Her landlady doesn’t like her because she is different, and I think she thinks I must have been queer to keep Victorine in my employ.”

  Patrick asked, “Uncle George is perfectly sure that Victorine left this house last night, isn’t he?”

  “He swears it. I asked him again this morning.”

  “Has he a good memory?”

  “Perfect. He’s got a bad heart, nothing else.”

  “He wouldn’t lie about it, would he?”

  “But why?”

  “It might be important. Do you think that Victorine did make some mistake—with your wife’s medicines, for instance—and then got scared and beat it?”

  “I do not. And even if she had, she would come back, or at least she would have phoned me. She isn’t afraid of me, Pat.”

  Patrick said drily, “Perhaps you weren’t within reach?”

  “Why not? I’ve been here all the time, ever since...”

  “Ever since you came in last night? When was that?”

  “You know when...I came directly from the front door and along our porch and found Jean lying in my door. That was a few minutes past two. The quarter hour struck soon after.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Prove it? Well, if Jean remembers the clock’s striking...”

  “Let’s go back a little,” Patrick said. His voice still had that inflexible tone. He was being too hard on Roger. I tried to catch his eyes, but had no luck. “You met Carol near the church just before midnight, Roger. Where were you before that?”

  “I left the hospital out on Lake Pontchartrain at eleven-thirty, drove in, put my car in the garage, walke
d across Iberville to Chartres, and met Carol about one minute after I arrived at the church.”

  “How long were you with Carol?”

  “Not very long. We sat down a few minutes on a bench in Jackson Square. She thought she should come on home. I agreed. It was still hazy so I followed a little way behind her till I saw she got safely into the house. Then I took a walk.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere. I finally got so tired—I was then at the river, at the end of Canal Street—that I thought I couldn’t lift another foot. I couldn’t get a taxi, so I walked home even though I thought I couldn’t do it. But by that time I had sort of squared things with myself. There are lots of people worse off than you are, and, if you don’t believe it, all you have to do is take a walk along the river when the bums come out late at night. I had got myself pretty well straightened out by the time I got home. I was married and I would stay married and Carol would some time be glad of my decision, I thought.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual when you came into the house?”

  “Only one thing. The night light was not burning in Helen’s room. I meant to have a look at it as soon as I had turned on my lamp. Then I almost stepped on Jean in my doorway.”

  “Jean says she smelled iodoform.”

  “Probably. I’d been operating. Look here, Pat, we’re wasting time. I’ve got to find that nurse.”

  Patrick asked, “You can’t find the nurse, can you, just by running out wildly and looking? It isn’t as simple as that.”

  “She may have gone back to our parish.”

  “If she has, the police will be looking for her there by now.” Patrick then asked abruptly, “Were you in love with your wife, or with Carol?”

  Roger flushed darkly. “What business...?”

  “That’s something the police will want to know. You might as well face it.”

  “But nobody knows about Carol,” Roger said. He spoke gently. “Nobody but you and Jean. We never met each other like that before. That was the first time, the only time, we were ever alone together. Nobody else even suspects...”