Green Ace

by Stuart Palmer

  “Stay put,” she told the dog. “You may look like an innocent brown lamb, but there’s larceny in your heart.” She checked the locks, turned out the lights, and made her way back upstairs to a fluffy little guest room, where her few Spartan belongings contrasted strangely with the blue and gold forget-me-not motif. There was a floppy French doll propped against the pillows, and Miss Withers firmly dropped it out of sight in the closet. She gave her hair its requisite hundred strokes with the brush, donned her old-fashioned flannel nightgown, and climbed into bed.

  It was the first peaceful moment of reflection she had had all day. Now was the time for detached thought, the time to make decisions. Only she went to sleep. It was a deep, dreamless sleep that was like a little death. It might have lasted five minutes or five hours, and then suddenly she was wide-awake again, not daring even to breathe, because something was wrong in the house.

  “A noise,” she decided. “It must have been a noise.” It came again, a faintly metallic sound outside in the hall.

  “It’s only mice,” Miss Withers reassured herself. Then she stiffened. “What do I mean, only mice? I hate mice!”

  But mice would not be silently, slowly, opening her door. Mice would not tiptoe stealthily into her room. Then a heavy weight descended upon her bed, and the schoolteacher sat up and opened her mouth to scream—only to smell a comforting doggy odor and realize that it was Talley. Leave it to him to solve the mystery of the barricade at the kitchen door. He had tracked her upstairs like a bloodhound, then patiently twisted the doorknob with his teeth until it opened …

  “Bless your silly safe-cracker’s heart!” she whispered, and hugged his neck. Talley gave her ear a polite lick in the darkness, then turned around five or six times to frighten snakes out of the tall grass and dropped into a compact lump at her feet. There was, in the poodle’s philosophy, a time and a place for everything, and this was the time and place for sleep. Affection could come later, probably around feeding time.

  But while Talleyrand had taught himself to open doors, he had never learned to close them behind him. And somehow there was something in this house which made Miss Withers want to shut herself away. She had to crawl out of bed with a chilly draft whistling about her thin ankles, and when she returned she was hopelessly wide-awake. She counted herds of sheep, she counted to a thousand by fives, she counted famous historical murderers whose names began with A, she declined amo, amas, amat, she even counted beads in a string that stretched to infinity …

  The beads suffered change into something rich and strange, a necklace made up of four round stones like tiny fortuneteller’s crystals, then a gem shaped like a coffin, then four more crystals … But she was tangled in the necklace, and couldn’t get out. She fought and struggled impotently, becoming more ensnarled at every turn, until somehow she remembered the open sesame that had never failed her yet. “This is only a dream,” she told herself, and woke up instantly. But part of the nightmare went right on happening. The bed was vibrating wildly. It was rather like the minor earthquake she had experienced on her first trip to Southern California, when the San Something fault had slipped a few inches and scared her half out of her wits. But this was no tremblor. “Talley!” she whispered. “Stop wagging your tail in your sleep.” But the dog didn’t stop.

  Puzzled, Miss Withers fumbled until she found the switch on the bedside lamp, and then saw with a start that the welcome signs Talley was hanging out were for Natalie Rowan, in silk pajamas and a feathery robe, who was peering in the door.

  “It’s only me!” said Natalie. “Oh, were you asleep?”

  “Momentarily, yes,” the schoolteacher sighed. “Wasn’t that the general idea?”

  “You didn’t hear it, then?”

  “Hear what?”

  Mrs. Rowan came closer, lowering her voice almost to a whisper. “Somebody was walking around outside the house. There’s a loose flagstone, and it always goes clunk. I could swear—but maybe I only dozed off and dreamed it. If there really had been someone, your dog would have barked, wouldn’t he?”

  “Probably not,” Miss Withers admitted. “Unless they happened to step on him in the dark. But relax. If there really had been anyone prowling around outside, they’d have seen this light go on, and probably be blocks away by now.”

  “Or maybe they’re downstairs, waiting in the dark—”

  “Nonsense. Now he’s awake, Talley would be down there making friends. Besides, how could anybody get in?”

  “I—I don’t know. There was that key Andy had made for the Harrington girl …”

  “You haven’t had the lock changed since then?” Miss Withers looked thunderstruck.

  Natalie shook her head. “Have you a gun?”

  “Of course not. And I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I had. But relax. Probably what you heard was only the policeman on the beat—the Inspector must have sent word to the local precinct to keep a sharp look-out and see that we were all right.” Miss Withers crossed her fingers and hoped that heaven would forgive her a lie as white as that one. But all the same it was a good half-hour later, with signs of dawn in the sky, before she finally got Natalie settled down again, with a promise to leave both doors open.

  “ ‘To sleep, perchance to dream …’ ” said the schoolteacher to herself as she wearily climbed back into the unfamiliar bed. But there were no dreams. She slept like a log, even when Talleyrand slipped quietly off the bed and trotted downstairs. When Natalie Rowan came down to make the coffee a little after eight-thirty in the morning she found the big dog in the living room, sitting hopefully before one of the French doors leading out into the garden. The blinds were all drawn, the locks intact—but a square of glass had been deftly cut out of one of the panes of the door and had fallen inside on the rug, unshattered because it had been neatly criss-crossed with scotch tape.

  “A very professional job,” admitted Miss Withers when she finally arrived on the scene. A hand could have come in through that opening, could have reached the latch and then opened the door without making a sound, or at least a sound that human ears could hear. Had Talleyrand heard it? Had the poodle come galumphing down the stairs to see what was up?

  “He saved us!” insisted Natalie. “And all the time you were saying he wasn’t any good as a watchdog! Whoever it was, he scared them away and then waited right there in case they came back.”

  “Perhaps,” admitted Miss Withers, tenderly ruffling the dog’s fuzzy topknot. It was possible that an intruder, working outside in the soft glow of a hooded flashlight, might have been frightened away if he had glimpsed the big animal racing silently across the room toward him, even though Talley would only have been trying to be a one-dog committee of welcome.

  But as for the poodle’s setting himself up on guard duty afterward, like the apocryphal Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, she had her doubts. A door was a door, and Talley only wanted out.

  “Only why,” Natalie Rowan demanded over the breakfast table, “should anyone want to break in here?”

  “Why should anyone call up on the telephone and blast us with canned, mechanical laughter?” Miss Withers sniffed. “It’s time we had answers to those questions and to a lot of other ones too. Because the clock is running out …”

  She burst into the Inspector’s office before he even had a respectable ash on his after-breakfast cigar. “Oscar, today’s the day!”

  “The day for what—my jumping into the East River? Did you happen to see the newspapers this morning? They’re all hinting that the Rowan conviction is open to question, and that if Wilson hadn’t been shot he could tell plenty!”

  “Oh, bother the newspapers for the moment. Do you recall our conversation at dinner last night?”

  Piper scowled. “Oh, your two questions? I answered the first one then, and now I’ll dispose of the second. For your information, neither of the two cops who arrested Andy Rowan showed any signs of having a dime outside of his regular pay …”

  “Oh, dear!” s
aid the schoolteacher. “But I wasn’t talking about that. Do you remember what I said about getting all the suspects together under one roof and stirring them up in the hope that something would explode?”

  “Oh, the phony séance? Well, forget it. It would never have worked anyway. Besides, we’ve located Cawthorne and he isn’t available. He’s in Reno, Nevada, doing all right at the dice tables as a professional magician should. The reason he left the hospital was that he was about cured and owed a big bill. He also took along a pretty nurse, and married her. Marika wasn’t his daughter or his wife—just a cousin, and the money she sent him was payment for the magic act she took over. It seems that they had some kind of a royalty arrangement.”

  But the schoolteacher seemed oddly uncrushed by the news. “I wasn’t thinking of a séance at all,” she informed him lightly. “That was Natalie Rowan’s idea originally, but I’ve been thinking. Oscar, what would happen if you announced to the newspapers that the reason Banana-Nose Wilson was arrested was because you had information that he had been robbing the Rowan house the night of the murder—and had seen Midge Harrington arriving with her murderer? He could have been upstairs, collecting valuables, and seen them from the window. Of course he’d have made a quick getaway down a drainpipe or something, and then kept silent for fear of incriminating himself …”

  “Dream on!” said the Inspector. “Is it opium or hashish?”

  “But suppose Natalie Rowan ostensibly identified some of the loot you found in Wilson’s flat as her property, missing since the murder? She hadn’t reported it before because she was so upset, and naturally she figured that the stuff disappeared during the investigation. That would give you an excuse to bring all the suspects up to the Rowan house tonight, with Banana-Nose Wilson stationed in the upper window to see if he could pick out the one who came there with Midge.”

  “How daffy can you get?” Piper demanded.

  “Of course it would be an act—but if it paid off it would be worth it! And you wouldn’t have to have Wilson really there if he can’t be moved—it could be one of your men bandaged and in a wheel chair—”

  “Sure,” said the Inspector. “Let’s play fun and have games. Only for your information, Rollo Wilson turned up his toes during the night, and the newspapers already know it!”

  “Oh, dear!” sighed Miss Withers. “But we’ve simply got to get all of the suspects together somehow …” She sniffed. “If only you’d cooperate …”

  “I want no part of this,” the Inspector told her.

  “ ‘Then I’ll do it myself,’ said the little red hen, and she did.” Miss Withers stiffened her spine and marched out of the office.

  Although he winced whenever the phone rang or the door opened, Inspector Oscar Piper heard nothing more from the schoolteacher until late that afternoon. He had a feeling, however, that she was up to no good. Conviction came with the last mail of the day. When Miss Withers finally did show up he was still clutching a sheet of paper and talking to himself.

  “You!” he cried as she approached. “I’ve put up with a lot, but this is the last straw!” He read aloud, in a voice heavy with derision, “Mrs. Natalie Fogel Rowan requests the pleasure of your company at an informal memorial service for the late Miss Midge Harrington, to be held at nine o’clock on the evening of September 19th at 144 Prospect Way. Motion pictures of Miss Harrington and others will be screened, after which there will be a discussion which it is hoped will result in preventing a gross miscarriage of justice and save an innocent man from execution.”

  “Oscar, perhaps Natalie did go a little overboard on the invitations, but—”

  “Overboard!” he cried. “Listen. In return for your courtesy in attending and in evidence of Mrs. Rowan’s sincerity, the other half of the attached will be handed to you at the door. And here’s half of a hundred-dollar bill clipped to the letter!”

  “Natalie Rowan has plenty of money, and she thought this would be one way of making sure that everybody would come. Crude but effective, Oscar. Perhaps it is in somewhat questionable taste, but I don’t see what harm it will do. We’ll need witnesses anyway.”

  “You’ll need straitjackets!” exploded the harassed policeman. “This crazy idea—it must be the silly season. Now I’ve seen everything.”

  “Not quite everything, Oscar. But I think you will, tomorrow night.”

  He was suddenly, dangerously calm. “Sit down, Hildegarde. This isn’t like you at all—”

  “I’m on a spot,” she said. “Just as you are. Did you know that Rowan has actually made me beneficiary of his insurance? I just dropped in at the company office—I saw the policy and the endorsement. Also the other insurance policies, for the house and Natalie’s jewels. Don’t perk up your ears—there were no necklaces listed.”

  “Then why—”

  “Why did the company get in touch with the Governor? Because there is a double indemnity clause in his life insurance. I think somebody figured out that if Rowan was executed, and then later found innocent, some smart lawyer could make a good case for death by accident—even though he had been legally executed!”

  The Inspector pressed his fingertips against his temples. “Not so fast,” he said. “What’s this about movies?”

  “In a way it’s psychological, Oscar. Mrs. Rowan is going to rent a sound projector and we’ll show the sixteen-millimeter film you took of her husband after his arrest. The killer will be sweating blood, thinking of how close he came to being in that spot. Then I’ve also located some newsreel footage of Midge Harrington in a bathing beauty parade, and the test she made at Paramount when she was trying to get a Hollywood contract. That ought to stir things up even more.”

  “Listen,” he said. “If there was a murderer in the room, which there won’t be for sour apples, why in holy blazes do you two crazy women think he’ll crack up and confess just because you show him a lot of old movies?”

  “But we don’t, not exactly. The films are being run only to set the atmosphere—and to make it dark.”

  “So the murderer can make a break for it, and give himself away?” The Inspector nodded, an idiot grin on his face. “And why should the murderer make a break, you going to have a violinist playing Hearts and Flowers offstage?”

  “Please, Oscar. You’ll understand it all tomorrow night.”

  “Me?” He hit the ceiling, and bounced there. “I wouldn’t show up at your party for all the tea in China!”

  “Not even for the hundred-dollar door prize? Then do it for me.”

  Almost in desperation he said, “But I tell you again, Rowan is guilty! If he isn’t, I’ll turn in my badge and retire to Long Island and raise ducks, I swear to heaven I will!”

  “I know who the murderer is,” Miss Withers said softly. “But I’ll have to demonstrate it to make you understand.” She held up her right hand. “You just swore an oath, and I’ll swear one too. If this doesn’t work I promise solemnly never to bother you again. I’ll—I’ll quit snooping and take up fancy needlework!”

  The Inspector stared at her. “You really mean that?”

  “Word of honor.”

  He nodded slowly. “So no matter how this works out, this is the last case we’re ever mixed up in together. Because I’m not kidding either.”

  The schoolteacher held out a steady hand, and they shook on it. “Sister,” he said with a hopeful glint in his eye, “you’ve got yourself a deal!”

  “ ‘Heavy, heavy hangs over thy head.’ ‘What shall I do to redeem it?’ ”

  —Children’s game

  13.

  ALL THE LIGHTS OF THE house on Prospect Way were blazing that Sunday evening when a few minutes before eight-thirty o’clock the Inspector, feeling more than a little foolish, came up the steps. Then, as he stretched out his finger toward the doorbell everything went dark.

  Startled, he rang anyway, and a moment later was admitted by Miss Withers, who was wearing her best dotted Swiss and a worried expression. “Oscar, you promised to be here
early!” she said accusingly. “I wanted you to help me experiment with the lights.”

  “You seem to be doing all right experimenting on your ownsome,” he told her. “What’s the hurry? This clambake doesn’t start until nine, does it?”

  “I know. But I’ve been nervous here all alone.”

  “You asked for it,” he said unsympathetically. “Pulling a fool stunt like this. Probably nobody will even show up.”

  “That’s the very least of my worries,” the schoolteacher confessed. “They’ll all be here. You see, I talked to each one on the phone—and told him that he wasn’t under any suspicion but that I very much wanted him here to help me disclose the real murderer. They all promised, whether from curiosity or because of Natalie’s bribe I don’t know.”

  “Yes, where is our fair hostess? I want to give her back this piece of banknote. Of all the weird ideas—”

  “For a desperate disease, Oscar, a desperate cure. If it works that’s all that matters. Don’t worry, Natalie will be back in time. She was jittering so much, and casting such longing eyes at the decanter, that I insisted she go out and get some dinner and not come back until time for the guests to arrive. She’s trying to bear up, but, of course, she can’t forget for a minute that this is the last day. Tomorrow is the twentieth—”

  “Don’t I know it?” he said, as he followed Miss Withers into the living room and looked at the portable movie projector ready and waiting. “And you’re going to try to prevent the inevitable with a magic-lantern show?”

  “If only the magic works!” she told him. “You didn’t forget to bring what you promised, did you?”