by Frances
The MG came first, with its familiar sound. Then a convertible Buick. Bob unwound himself from the little car and Nathan Shapiro, rather incongruously wearing a dark business suit, got out of the Buick, and they came up onto the terrace. “Captain Weigand’s car,” Shapiro said, looking back at the Buick sadly, with a kind of embarrassment. “Loaned it to me.”
Offered gin and tonic, Nathan Shapiro shook his head gloomily. Pressed to name an alternative, he said, “Perhaps a small glass of wine?” Lois was afraid there was only cooking sherry.
“That’s fine,” Shapiro said. “I haven’t got a palate,” he added, confessing inadequacy. Bob Oliver, using his left hand more than he usually did, mixed gin and tonic water and added lime, while Lois got, and doubtfully returned with, a darkish liquid in a cocktail glass. Shapiro thanked her and said it was a nice day after the rain and that he was sorry Mrs. Williams had got all scratched up that way.
“It could have been a lot worse,” she said, sipping. “But for you—for the two of you. Knocked unconscious, put in the car and—” She shivered again, involuntarily. “She—Mrs. Harbrook —was trying to—to tell me about it? Because she couldn’t stomach murder? And he killed her? Hit her over the head, so that she fell down the stairs?”
“And broke her neck,” Shapiro said. “Yes. That would have been the way of it. Also, of course, with her dead he stood to inherit what she had inherited from Mrs. Montfort. Probably planned it that way all along. One of the things she didn’t know about, of course.”
“And—Mr. Graham?”
“Says he didn’t know,” Shapiro told them. “Says it at length. He’s talking a lot—was when I left them to it. Trying to talk himself out of it. Didn’t know Keating was going to do anything to the Farthing girl. Certainly didn’t know he was going to do anything to his aunt. And—was really trying to protect you, Mrs. Williams.”
“The hell he was,” Bob Oliver said.
“Yes,” Shapiro said. “Of course, he didn’t know we were watching. Up to the time he held you for Keating, Mrs. Williams—well, up to then there could have been something in what he says. I suppose you’d say he made his decision then. Made the wrong decision. Well—”
He drank a little sherry. He did not look any sadder than before which probably, Lois thought, proved he was right about his palate.
“Blotted his copybook with that, as they say,” Shapiro said. “Like he did the signature that didn’t need blotting. That wasn’t wet when it was blotted, of course. Left to dry, as yours was, as young Tony Bourgelotti’s was. So that all three looked the same in color, texture. As they wouldn’t, if one had been blotted. But that’s obvious, of course.”
“Why?” Lois said.
He looked at her in apparent surprise. He raised his eyebrows.
“Blot at all,” she said.
Shapiro said, “Oh,” and that that had been psychological, he supposed. A form of mental suggestion, aimed at her. To fix in her mind that the will had just been signed, in her presence, and hence by Mrs. Montfort.
“In words of one syllable,” Bob Oliver said. “We lag a little, Nathan.”
Nathan Shapiro came as near to smiling then as his face permitted. He said he couldn’t imagine why they lagged. He said it was as plain as the nose on his face, which was plain enough. Or the nose on Mrs. Montfort’s face. But—
Mrs. Montfort had given instructions as to her will, as Graham said she had. He had drawn it up and taken it back to her for signature, as he said he had. But—not when he said he had. He admitted that, now. Now, as fast as he could talk, he admitted everything—except knowing that it would all lead to killing.
Why Abigail Montfort had decided to leave everything to Ella Harbrook, how much influence had been used on her—that was for other people to decide, not for Nathan Shapiro. At any rate, she had so decided—but not on Sunday, as Graham had said. The previous Thursday was when he had taken the completed will for her inspection, and left it with her. And—a few hours later she had lapsed into a coma. And Keating had called Graham and said, in effect, “What do we do now? Is there anything we can do now?”
Except hope that she would regain consciousness and be able to sign, Graham couldn’t think of anything they could do. If she did—
‘‘Well,” Shapiro said, “it seems she did and they got her to sign and she went back into coma. And then Keating called Graham to tell him that it had all worked out fine and to be told that that was what he thought, and that it hadn’t.”
“Because,” Shapiro said, “there were no witnesses to her signature—nobody who could witness, since Mrs. Harbrook was an interested party and, through her, Keating. Graham told Keating to look at it, face up to it. Here was a will which cut off her only direct heir, her grandson, in favor of her companion and housekeeper. Exactly the sort of will on which a contest could be expected. Even with all legal requirements fulfilled, contest—on the grounds of undue influence or mental incompetence or both—was likely. With no witnesses, with the conditions of the signing dependent on the word of a woman who stood to gain a million dollars or so—well, Mrs. Harbrook and her nephew might as well face it. Of course, since they would really be carrying out the old lady’s wishes—
“Graham says the idea was Keating’s,” Shapiro told them. “Keating doesn’t say anything at all. So—not that it matters too much, probably. Hire a substitute, an impersonator—and do it fast so that Mrs. Montfort didn’t die on them in advance. So that, say, a doctor couldn’t testify he doubted Mrs. Montfort had signed the will because, at the time, she would have been stiff as a board. Once the will was witnessed, she could die any time.”
Shapiro stopped and shook his head and said, “Sorry, Mrs. Williams. Didn’t mean to put it that way.”
So—the employment of Mrs. Banks, née Farthing; the staging of the charade; the movement of a pen over paper without touching paper; the few words to prove mental alertness.
“In,” Lois said, “the wrong voice.”
There had been that. It was a slip-up. They hadn’t coached her on that, and she had never heard Abigail Montfort speak, because at the time Mrs. Montfort, while still alive, wasn’t speaking.
“They picked me by accident?” Lois said. “To witness?”
They had known she was coming, Shapiro pointed out. She had an appointment. As for the boy—they had merely discovered some outdoor work to be done, and fixed the time.
Actually, Shapiro said, he didn’t know that there had been, up to that time, any action which was overtly illegal, unless it had been the failure to call a physician when Mrs. Montfort went into coma. Criminal negligence, they might call that. What the masquerade amounted to was the formal legalization of an action already completed. Sharp practice, obviously; practice to which the Bar Association might well take exception. But, on the other hand, an effort to carry out the wishes of an old woman, nearing death.
“Actually,” Bob Oliver said, “they had it made. Why, then?”
That, Shapiro said, was what Graham insisted he didn’t know. But, it wasn’t hard to guess. Suppose, at a guess, that Grace Farthing hadn’t known how much money was involved when she was hired. Suppose, finding out, she wanted more money—a lot more money. Also, she had got herself suspected.
“He did it himself?” Lois asked. “The mugging, I mean?”
Shapiro looked very sad at that. He said he doubted it. He said that, if Keating kept mum, as he looked like doing, the actual killer might get away with it—with it and with whatever he was paid for it. The thought obviously depressed him.
“Who was on the terrace, listening?”
Shapiro spread his hands. He said he didn’t know, and didn’t expect to know. Not Keating—Keating, almost certainly, had been the man, the man who smoked cigars, in Grace Farthing’s apartment. Which left Graham or Mrs. Harbrook, eavesdropping to find out what the New York trip had come to. Graham knew they had made the trip; had heard Lois speak of Commerce Street, which had been enough. He denied having b
een on the terrace. It was not necessary to believe him. But, at a guess, Mrs. Harbrook. However—
Shapiro regarded his diminished glass of sherry. (Call it sherry.) He said that the flagstones were rough; that dust could cling to them for a long time in dry weather; it hadn’t rained for a long time until yesterday. So—the human footprint might have been there for days.
He looked at Lois and smiled faintly. “Unless,” he said, “you’d swept it recently?”
“A flagged terrace isn’t swept very—” she said, and stopped and said, “Oh, all right. All right, Mr. Shapiro.”
“Well,” Shapiro said, “that does it. And I’d better be getting back to town.” He stood up. “Got a dog to walk,” he said. “And my wife—well, this was supposed to be a day off. One of those who get lonely, my wife is.”
He stood up and they stood up, and shook hands with him—he had an unexpectedly strong hand—and he started toward the Buick. He stopped. “Oh,” Shapiro said, “thanks for the sherry. Very good, I thought it was.”
They watched him go.
“Speaking of good things,” Bob Oliver said, “whatever happened to that blueberry pie?”
She looked at him, from very round blue eyes. She said it was in the refrigerator. She said, “Do we want pie with gin?”
“Always,” he said. “Perfect combination.”
She looked at him doubtfully, but got up from the chaise and started toward the french doors.
“I’ll go in with you,” he said, and did. She went to the kitchen and took the pie out of the refrigerator and he went with her. She said, looking at the pie, that it seemed to have shrunk and would be awfully cold and—
“Bob,” she said. “At least let me put the pie down first.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Nathan Shapiro Mysteries
I
As Reginald Grant came through the doorway of his apartment he ducked his head. This was involuntary; he was not conscious of it. When a man has been somewhat in excess of six feet tall since the age of eighteen—a period, in Grant’s case, of some twenty years—he learns to duck under lintels. Do not enquire; bob the head down. Let conditioned reflex relieve the mind of a tiresome series of estimates. This is no more than reflex’s duty.
If, as he came out into the hall corridor and walked toward the staircase, one had suddenly asked Reginald Grant what floor he was on he would, as involuntarily as he had ducked, have said that he was on the first floor. Then, probably, he would have snapped his fingers and smiled pleasantly enough—he had a wide mouth for smiling—and admitted that, once more, he had been caught out. One bows to usage as to low-hung lintels. When in America speak, within reason, as Americans speak. If they chose to call the first floor the second, that is clearly their affair. Reginald Grant was a tolerant man.
Going down the stairs—a loose-limbed man, with a long face; a man with pale brown hair fitting as smoothly along skull as a Siamese cat’s fur fits the cat’s long body—Grant maintained a tolerant mood, although at the moment this was a bit difficult. Call the first floor the second if they liked. But why schedule lectures (and mispronounce “schedule” into the bargain) for the vexing hour of eight in the evening? For almost two months, and twice each week, Grant had asked himself that question, and received no answer.
When did they expect a man to eat? It was hardly possible that they did not know that poets ate like other men—provided, of course, that they were poets of independent means. And when did they themselves eat, the hundred or so intelligent people, of varying ages, who would assemble in the Forsythe Theater, of Dyckman University (Downtown Branch) to hear a lecture on The Poet in the Modern World? Did they snatch a hamburger or a hot dog—both potentially satisfactory enough in their proper places—before assembling? Or did they wait until after it all was over? In short, why not schedule mass culture for nine o’clock, and so avoid mass indigestion?
Once each Tuesday and each Friday since mid-September, Reginald Grant had speculated on this matter while descending the stairway from the first—no, the second—floor of the house near Gramercy Park in which he had, until the first of the year, sublet a flat—no, an apartment. It was as good a thing to wonder about as any other, on the way to lecture. In his case, to be sure, the issue was somewhat academic. Lecturing gave him indigestion whether he ate before or after. His stomach—his father would have said his liver—did not want to lecture. The rest of Reginald Grant rather did, on the whole. Nobody had, as they said here in New York, “twisted his arm.” He had come willingly, even eagerly, from London to this fantastic city to talk about the one thing that, scratch him deep enough, he cared a damn about.
As he opened the outer door of the vestibule, and went down the street stairs, Grant discovered that it was still raining. It had been raining when he got home from his afternoon discussion class—for undergraduates, that one was, and taken for “credit”—it had been raining, steadily if a little listlessly. Now, in addition to rain, there was fog. London did them thicker but not, it occurred to Reginald Grant, clammier. He hunched his Burberry higher, and felt the night trickle on his head. He looked to his right and lifted an arm hopefully. The lights of Joe’s cab came on; the cab moved out from the curb. (Grant’s mind did not waste time with the spelling.) The cab crossed diagonally in the oneway street and stopped in front of Grant, who had shifted two books—with slips of paper marking pages he would read from—from under right arm to under left in preparation. Grant opened the taxi door and said, “Evening, Joe.”
“Evening, Professor,” Joe Abrams said.
Grant had explained about that, the second time Joe had driven him from the street just off Gramercy Park to Washington Square. By the second time Joe had adopted him. It sometimes occurred to Grant that, among the many pleasant people he had met in New York, on his first visit to New York, he had got to know Joe Abrams best. Joe had seen to that and, after a few moments of surprise, Grant had happily acquiesced. He had never, however, been able to persuade Joe Abrams that he was not a professor.
He had said that being invited to a university to give a series of lectures—the Bingham Lectures, specifically—did not make a man a professor, and that teaching a few courses to undergraduates (for credit) did not either. Joe had said, “Sure, I get you, Professor,” and it had never gone beyond that, although by this Tuesday (15 November) Grant knew a great deal about Joe Abrams (four children, one of them studying law; a wife named Rachel and “mama”) and accepted that Abrams knew a good deal about him—a degree from Cambridge, unmarried, a man who wrote, and wrote about, poetry. And, evidently, talked about it.
“The weather is lousy,” Joe told Reginald Grant, and started the big cab.
The size of the cab had been the initial bond between Grant and Joe Abrams. If you are a tall man and come upon one of the old cabs—the five-passenger cabs—you grapple it with hoops of steel. Grant had learned that in his first New York fortnight.
Grant said, “Quite,” with conviction, and looked through the window at it—at gray night and night of mist; with the lights in the fenced park seeming dimly to waver in the grayness. The lights drip, Grant thought; it is a night of dripping light. He wondered how many, on such a night, would venture out to hear talk of poetry.
“Anyway,” Joe said, and stopped for a traffic light, “it ain’t snow. You got to give it that.”
Grant gave it that and looked away from the window and at the back of Abrams’s head and said, “How’s mama, Joe?” Mama had been ailing. It had seemed that nothing the doctor gave her did much good. Not that Doc Cohen wasn’t a good man, but still—
“She’s about—” Joe Abrams said and then Grant saw it—saw it on the floor, against the opposite door—and said, “Joel” His tone stopped Joe Abrams. Joe said, “Yeah?”
“Somebody’s left a coat on the floor,” Grant said, but even as he said this he no longer thought it was only a coat on the floor, so that the tension in his voice did not match his words. It was the timbre of
the voice, not the words, which made Joe pull abruptly to the curb and stop.
“People all the time leave—” he began, going on with the ordinary because of a kind of inertia in his mind. But by then, although he had not yet turned, he knew that it was not only a coat lying on the floor of the cab.
By the time Joe was on the sidewalk, was opening the right rear door, Reginald Grant was on his knees on the cab floor, trying to lift what was huddled there, wedged there against the door. Except that his position was so awkward, Grant would have had no trouble lifting the girl from floor to seat. She was so light that he thought, when he first touched her, that he touched a child. It was only when he, with Joe helping, had got her up to the seat that he realized she was not a child—had not been a child. He was, by then, quite certain that she was dead—and that the hands which had touched her body were wet with her blood.
A layman cannot always be sure, and Reginald Grant told himself this as he looked at the girl in the faint light—the dripping light. But he was sure, and Joe Abrams was sure and said, “God. Oh, God,” in a strange, grating voice.
The wound was in the back. Grant could not tell what had caused the wound, only that blood had poured from it. He sought a pulse and thought, There can’t be enough blood left in her to make a pulse, not with what has soaked into the sweater, the tweed skirt; not with what is pooled there on the floor.
Not a child, but not much more than a child. Under twenty, surely—a small girl and slight, weighing so little—so heartbreakingly little. So far from ready for the harsh maturity of death, and death of this nature, that a massive incongruity seemed to flatten Grant’s mind, even as he gave up fingering a lifeless wrist and looked across the dead girl at Joe Abrams, who was looking at the girl as if he did not really see her, or see anything and saying over and over, “God. God. God,” in a strange, uninflected voice. Then he said, “She’s dead, ain’t she?”
