The Grindle Nightmare
Page 19
“Yes. I know now and I can prove it, thanks to the efficiency of your man who discovered the revolver and, incidentally, almost arrested me for trying to do the same thing yesterday morning.”
I stared at him, trying to make up my mind whether or not he was bluffing. Had he still some evidence which none of the others of us had been able to obtain? Did he know something which would lead yet another inhabitant of the valley to arrest? The whole crazy pack of our neighbors rose-up in my mind like the cards in Alice in Wonderland. There was Millie and Charlie, far too normal, surely, to commit anything so desperate as murder. There was Seymour, grim and tyrannical; Franklin, loveless and embittered; Roberta, grotesque and hysterical; Edgar, insignificant, yet somehow dangerous. Which of them was Toni about to accuse?
Valerie had risen to her feet, her face obscured in the shadows.
“Toni, you’re crazy.” Her voice was high and tense. “You can’t know! You can’t know for certain!”
Toni glanced up at her and continued calmly. “Consider first Gerald’s character. I Want you to try and put yourself in his place on the night of the coon-hunt. Remember he was the weak sister of the pleasant little duet. The mighty Foote had been laid up with a broken leg for over a week and Gerald was on his own. You can imagine his sensations when that body fell from the tree. You can imagine the fear that gripped his vitals as he ran homeward. He goes to the ’phone to call Peter and tell him the game is up and then—on top of it all—I appear like an avenging Fury. I beat the hell out of him. Unnecessarily, because he is licked already. Licked, yes, but remember he has a warped and revengeful nature. He had vowed to get even with me. That alone was uppermost in his mind when he left me to meet—as it was afterwards revealed—his own death.”
“Who killed him?” broke in Bracegirdle sharply.
I heard Valerie catch her breath.
“Who killed him?” Toni laughed. “I said just now it was Peter Foote. So it was indirectly. But actually it was—Gerald Alstone.”
He stopped suddenly, and for a moment there was absolute silence. Valerie sank into her chair, passing a hand across her forehead. Her hair looked almost grey in the half light.
“I think,” went on Toni, “that he had made up his mind to suicide the moment Polly’s corpse fell out of the tree. But, after his interview with me, his distorted imagination fixed on a far more cunning and original plan. What if he were to arrange his suicide to look like murder? And not only to look like murder, but like another in a chain of murders! A body dragged behind a car—the old instinct comes out in him. He loads his gun and sneaks out to where my car is parked. A piece of rope round his ankle is tied to my bumper. Bang! He dispatches himself and the evidence remains with me—a doubly damning piece of evidence because it is a dark night, the snow is falling, and it’s ten to one against my seeing the body when I start the car.”
Bracegirdle bent forward over the table. “You suggest that Gerald Alstone tied himself to your car and then committed suicide?”
“I suggest precisely that. You found the gun just where I parked that night, didn’t you? In fact, it was in the exact position where it would have fallen from his hand.”
“Was that what gave you the idea?”
“No, not exactly that. As I told you, I had had other suspicions.”
“Dr. Conti, I want you to understand me quite clearly.” Bracegirdle had risen to his feet and was now very much the police officer. “Don’t think I am not grateful for your suggestions and don’t imagine for a minute that I want to throw discredit on your testimony. I do feel, however, that for a man in your position, a professor in one of our leading universities, you have acted in a manner that is open to serious criticism. It is over two weeks since Gerald Alstone died and all this time, you have withheld material evidence.”
Toni spread out his hands and smiled. “Would you have come forward in my place, Bracegirdle? Remember, things looked pretty black for me even before the body was found in my own backyard. I know enough about police routine to realize that you would probably worm some sort of story out of the servants to the effect that I was seen snooping around the Alstones’ house on the night of the crime. I imagine you probably found my finger-prints. If I was to come forward with a gratuitous tale of having beaten up the corpse about five minutes before its death, it would have been asking for trouble. It could easily be proved that I had ample reason to want to kill Gerald—”
“In other words,” interrupted the deputy, “you deliberately impeded the course of justice to save your own skin.”
The sentence was scarcely finished when we heard a commotion in the living-room. Suddenly the door was kicked open and Peter Foote, his wrists handcuffed behind him, stood in the doorway.
“You’re right, Inspector,” he cried, and if there had been any doubt before of his madness there was none now. “He saw Gerald and me in that car the night we lassoed Sancho Panza. The goddam hypocrite pretended to be shocked because the poor little animal was being hurt. But he did worse than that himself. He killed Gerald—I tell you—and he would have killed me if I hadn’t been in the hospital. Ask him—ask him—” His voice had risen to an ugly screech.
Two stalwart figures loomed up behind him. Bracegirdle nodded them toward the door.
“Take him out to the car,” he said. “I’m coming in a minute.” He turned to us. “Dr. Conti, I’m pretty well satisfied with your story, but there are one or two little points that’ll still have to be cleared up. It’s too late to do anything about it tonight, but I shall want to see you and Dr. Swanson in the D. A.’s office tomorrow morning.”
The deputy took his leave and outside we could hear the police car drive off. Neither Valerie, Toni, nor I spoke for a few moments. Then Toni lit a cigarette and tilted his chair.
“After all that talking,” he said, smiling, “I need a drink. I’m hoarse.”
He hurried into the kitchen, and I could hear him attacking the ice noisily. Valerie and I stood close together and looked at each other. Her eyes were shining and I thought I had never seen her so lovely before.
“He’ll be all right,” I said softly. “Don’t worry any more.”
“I’m not worried, Doug. I—oh, it’s all so beastly.”
I put my arm round her. “It was wonderful of you not to say anything about that piece of rope you took from the car,” I whispered.
“Oh, that was nothing,” she said dully. “Any girl would have done that to save the man—she loved.” She raised her head and gave a sad little smile. “The only trouble is that he doesn’t seem to realize it, does he?”
“Perhaps he does,” I said foolishly and, as I spoke, I felt her move a little toward me. Her cheek brushed my face and then I felt her lips light against mine.
“Good-by, Valerie,” I said quietly, “and please don’t think I’m sorry about it. He’s a swell guy.”
“Good-by, Doug.”
Toni was coming into the room with some tinkling glasses.
“You’re not going, Valerie!” he exclaimed.
“Yes.”
As she turned at the door, I caught a glimpse of her eyes wet with tears. Then she was gone.
“Come on, Doug.” My room-mate’s voice was cheerful. “Just time for a quick one.”
I took a glass from the tray and then set it down again.
“Listen, Toni,” I said, “you’ve manhandled me pretty badly tonight, and I ought to be mad at you. But I’m not.”
“I should damn well hope you aren’t.”
“Well, you certainly deserve a bawling out for not spilling the beans earlier. Bracegirdle was dead right. Of course, I understand your silence at first when you wanted to protect Mark. It was damn decent of you—but, why on earth did you keep quiet for so long after the night of the coon-hunt? You may fool Bracegirdle into believing you were scared on your own account, but you can’t fool me.”
Toni sipped his drink and smiled very engagingly.
“Well, Doug, how would you have acted if—say�
�you’d thought that I murdered Gerald?”
“What the hell has that got to do with it?”
“You see, I was quite convinced until yesterday that you had done it. Not that I blamed you, mind. God knows, I almost polished the little bastard off myself.”
“You thought I murdered Gerald Alstone?”
“Naturally! I thought Mark had told you about the dog and you’d gone me one better. And then, after the coon-hunt, when I saw with my own eyes—”
“Saw what?”
Toni gave an impish chuckle. “You mean you haven’t tumbled to that even yet? You see, our cars were near together, they’re both Plymouths, And, when I got back the second time, I happened to park on the other side of you.”
I stared at him in amazement.
“Yes,” he continued, “Gerald made a mistake. He tied himself to your car.”
“Oh, my God!” Light seemed to be pouring in on me from every direction. “You mean that I dragged Gerald all the way home. That it was my car Mrs. Baines saw. That it was I who made those stains under the bridge—”
“Yes, Doug. You never were very good at getting into the garage anyway. Just like you to drop the corpse off in the yard.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
Toni was enjoying my bewilderment. “And I’m very sorry to say, Doug, that it was you I suspected of doing the murder. I gave you a chance to be confidential on several occasions but you didn’t seem to want to talk. It was only when the body turned up yesterday that I realized it must have been an accident. That’s what made me look—elsewhere. God knows, you’re dumb, but you’re not dumb enough to leave such damning evidence on the doormat.”
“You say you saw the body behind my car!”
“With these very eyes.”
“Good God!” I clutched the sleeve of his coat and almost spilt his drink. “Did Valerie see it, too?”
“No one will ever know, but I think not. I kept her engaged in idle banter to divert her attention.”
My face fell. “So she thought it was your car she took the rope from.”
“Of course not, you mutt. Anyone can tell yours from mine in the daytime. Besides, she’s been calling me wildly all day asking what lies she can tell to save you from the electric chair.”
My thoughts were racing now. “To save the man I love … He doesn’t seem to realize it … .”
Outside I could hear Valerie starting her car.
I knocked over a chair on my way to the door.
“Hey, Doug, are you crazy?”
“Sure,” I shouted, “just another case of folie à deuxl”
About the Author
Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick, and Jonathan Stagge were pen names under which Hugh Callingham Wheeler (1912–1987), Richard Wilson Webb (1901–1966), Martha Mott Kelley (1906–2005), and Mary Louise White Aswell (1902–1984) wrote detective fiction. Most of the stories were written together by Webb and Wheeler, or by Wheeler alone. Their best-known creation is amateur sleuth Peter Duluth. In 1963, the story collection The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1935 by The Hartney Press, Inc.
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5319-1
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