"Yes, you do," said Egbert. "He wanted to buy an Egyptian mummy."
Mary rested her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes.
"He wanted to buy a mummy," Egbert continued smoothly, "and you disapproved—but he was going to buy it anyway."
Mary gave a little sigh. "I dislike airing these things—but you seem to know about it. He had his heart set on that mummy, and he would not listen to me. He had made up his mind to buy it."
"It was all right for you to spend ridiculous sums on antiques, but you fought your husband implacably when he wanted an antique of his own," Egbert said, giving her a cold eye.
Mary drew herself up and iced over. "I feel in duty bound to answer your official questions, Mr. Egbert, but I am not interested in your insulting opinions. I bought necessary furniture for my home, but I had no wish to live in daily contact with a corpse reposing in a coffin—no matter how old it might be."
Egbert brushed it aside and said, "I am interested in knowing why you borrowed money from John Emerson to buy that antique bed."
Mary was furious. Hot color stained her face and neck, and her eyes flashed. "I cannot understand John telling you that—he was to have kept it an absolute secret. He'd no right to tell you, and I'll never trust him again."
"Be that as it may," said Egbert, "why did you borrow from him?"
"I see no reason why I should tell you."
"I know your bank balances are pretty low," Egbert continued, "but you have a fortune in securities, so why didn't you use some of that for your bed?"
Mary, her color still high and drumming nervously on the arms of her chair with her fingers, said nothing and stared at the floor.
Egbert regarded her for a moment of silence and then went on.
"You must have wanted that bed pretty badly to offer him such heavy interest on the sum you borrowed."
Mary glanced up and said rather weakly, "How can you think anybody could borrow from John? He never had a nickel."
"No. But he gouged a goodly sum out of his wife recently, by pretending that he needed a new false eye, claiming that the one he had did not fit and was too black, so he'd have to have another one. The cost of the new eye was not enough for him, so he invented a series of treatments necessary to make the new eye fit properly. Since his own oculist—a family friend—had died, he figured, correctly, that he could get away with this. As far as the color is concerned, Mr. Emerson still thinks his eye is too black—he was complaining about that before he got the idea of the new one—so he had to announce that the new one was a shade lighter. Evidently he was believed." Egbert paused to shrug.
"I knew nothing of that until just lately," Mary declared. "Mrs. Budd told me in confidence about his new false eye, and it crossed my mind that perhaps he was faking and that was how he had got the money. Previously I had happened to meet him at the galleries where I first saw the bed. It is a beautiful piece, and I told him how much I wanted it but that I hadn't the cash. He offered to lend me the amount, and I was to give him fifty dollars a month until it was paid off with good interest. I didn't know why he wanted to do it that way until I learned that Betty was going to divorce him—and then I realized that the fifty, added to the little he makes, would keep him for a while, so that he wouldn't need to rush straight into another marriage with a woman of means."
Egbert nodded. "But you haven't told me why you didn't cash some of the securities to buy your bed."
Mary shrugged. "Homer and I had agreed not to touch those for any purpose. They brought us a steady income, and neither one of us could cash any of them without the other's consent."
"So how did Mr. Fredon expect to pay for his mummy?"
"I've already told you," said Mary, "that he was trying to get Lucy to pay up."
"Yes. Certainly. But you and I both know that Mrs. Davis could not pay even if she wanted to."
"She could have sold everything she owned," Mary said angrily.
"What, for instance? She has no car and no property—she hasn't even jewelry or a mink coat. There's an insurance policy that pays her seventy a month, but she can't get any sort of an advance on it—and if she'd assigned the seventy over to Mr. Fredon, he'd have had to wait for some time before he'd have had enough to buy his mummy—if it was still for sale."
Mary looked at him for a moment, frowning, and with her lips compressed. "Couldn't she have borrowed the money," she said at last, "and signed over the seventy a month as security?"
"I shouldn't care to lend on that sort of security," Egbert replied smoothly. "That money stops the instant she dies."
"Then I don't know how she could have paid," Mary said in exasperation, "and I don't know how Homer intended to pay for his mummy."
"Then perhaps you do know why Suzy's death was an accident," Egbert suggested.
Mary looked down at her drumming fingers and up again. "I'm tired," she said suddenly. "I want to go to bed—I need sleep."
"Yes, certainly," said Egbert, always the gentleman. "But you will answer my question first?"
"Lucy came over here that Sunday afternoon and made some fudge, and she mixed it with morphine pills which were supposed to be nuts. After Betty and Homer had eaten some she put it away in a box on one of the shelves in the kitchen—and Suzy found it and ate some, The poor child was frantically trying to get someone to search the apartment so that the bodies would be found. And now I'm going to bed."
"Mrs. Davis never eats fudge herself?" Egbert asked.
"No." Mary got to her feet. "She's vain about her figure."
Egbert took a step toward her. "I knew Mrs. Davis had made that fudge, but it seemed odd that she would come over here to make fudge for Mr. Fredon when you were not at home. What excuse would she have given?"
Mary stopped on her way to the door and turned back. "I asked her to come. I know that she's lonely sometimes, and Homer was fond of her candy. I never dreamed that he was going up to Binghamton with Betty, of course. So Lucy came in the afternoon, just after they had got back, and made that fudge—and poisoned it, too."
Egbert nodded. "The elevator man said that Mrs. Davis had come in just after Mr. Fredon and Mrs. Emerson. Mrs. Davis declares that she got the nuts out of a labeled tin where you always kept them—and she further states that they ate only one piece each, and she wondered why—she thought there was something wrong with her cooking. She left shortly afterward, as she had a date, and she says that she came only as a favor to you, because you were so insistent—"
Mary came farther back into the room. "How could she say such a thing! It was merely a suggestion, and she clutched at it eagerly."
"I visited your cottage in the country, Mrs. Fredon," Egbert said with apparent irrelevance. "Lovely place."
Mary stood and looked at him in silence.
"Of course Mrs. Davis was right—the curtain material was the wrong color."
"It was nothing of the sort," Mary whispered.
"Yes, I think so—but it doesn't matter now. I believe that Mr. Fredon was ordinarily a patient man, but he was so angry when you borrowed money to buy that bed that he went straight off and sold the cottage in order to have money to buy his mummy."
The color in Mary's face drained away until it was a dead white. She stood absolutely still for a moment and then suddenly screamed, "No! Oh no!" She flew at Egbert and caught wildly at his coat. "He couldn't have—he wouldn't do it—he wasn't going to do anything before Monday—"
Egbert freed himself from her grasp and said mildly, "Then he changed his mind, because I have the proof here in my pocket."
He pulled out an assortment of papers, but Mary did not look at them.
She had turned away from him, and her face was livid with rage.
"The monster!" she whispered hoarsely. "Oh, the damnable monster! If only he were here I wouldn't give him such an easy death as I did."
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I DON'T THINK Mary quite realized what she had said. She paid very little attention to
Egbert and two of his men, who stepped in from the balcony when they formally placed her under arrest.
Lucy had crept in after the two men, and she stared at Mary with eyes that were round with horror. I sat frozen in my chair, feeling dazed and a bit sick, while Ken stood with his hands jammed into his pockets and the line of his jaw rigid.
When Mary was presently led away by Egbert's men she came to life again and began hysterically to protest her innocence and to accuse Lucy. When she had gone, at last, a blank silence fell upon us until Egbert came back into the room and—elaborately casual—lit a cigarette.
Lucy turned her bulging eyes on him and exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Egbert, are you sure? I mean, I don't see how she could have done it. She—she wasn't here."
"No," said Egbert. "You did it yourself with that fudge you made for them."
Lucy opened her mouth to scream, and Egbert said hastily, "Don't get excited—Mrs. Fredon tricked you. If you remember, she told you that she had a new kind of nut to mix in with your fudge, and she put those little morphine tablets in the box that was labeled 'Nuts.' You merely took her word for it and mixed them in."
But Lucy was not to be balked, and she went into a nice little bout of hysterics. After we had cleared her up a little she sobbed. "I thought they didn't look like nuts, but Mary said they were, and insisted that I make the fudge with them. She said they were a new kind and Homer was very fond of them. I ought to wear my glasses when I'm cooking! I wondered why they ate only one piece each—I couldn't understand it, because the fudge looked all right. Are you sure that's what killed them? I had to leave about fifteen minutes after they ate it, and they were perfectly all right then."
Egbert nodded. "Mrs. Fredon knew you had that date, and she told you not to come until about three quarters of an hour before you'd have to leave."
He was obviously afraid of Lucy's hysterics, and he turned away from her and spoke to Ken and me.
"Mrs. Fredon put what was left of the fudge away in a box, thinking, no doubt, that it might come in handy again—but she disposed of it when Suzy took some by accident."
"There are several things I wish you'd explain," Ken began, but Egbert broke in on him.
"There's one thing I don't understand. Why did you go up to Binghamton and interfere with my investigation?"
Ken shrugged. "Don't blame me—I was merely escorting my girlfriend around. I had nothing to do with it."
Lucy, trying to mop up tears without getting too much of her mascara off, said, "Ken! You're a cad."
"It's quite all right," I said easily. "He's afraid of Mr. Egbert, and I'm not."
Egbert gave me a cold stare. "I'd like to know where you got that Binghamton address."
I could see that it rankled, and I opened my mouth to tell him, but Ken spoke first.
"I don't see how Mary could have pulled Homer out of the bin, that night."
"Nonsense," said Egbert, looking bored. "The so-called weaker sex has astounding strength when the need arises."
"Do you mean that the story Mary just told us is true, except that it was herself instead of Lucy?" I asked.
"Yes," said Egbert. "Now where did you—"
"But why? How could she do such a thing? She was fond of Homer."
"Mildly, perhaps, but her real passion was her cottage and all the furniture there and in this apartment. She got so wrapped up in her possessions that she went and borrowed a large sum in order to buy the fancy bed— Napoleon, or something, they call it—and she had just bought two chairs that set her back a trifle of seven hundred-odd dollars. Her husband usually did what he was told, but that was too much even for him, so he put his foot down and said no more antiques. But she'd made this home-beautiful business her very life, so she figured she'd have to find the money for the bed behind his back. She got it from Emerson, as you know, but Mr. Fredon found out about it, and he went into one of those calm, stubborn tempers that are apt to crop out in mild people. He promptly made arrangements to sell the cottage, which was in his name alone—and he meant to sell it furnished, too. He intended to use the money to pay off John Emerson and buy that mummy.
"Mrs. Fredon raved and threatened, but she couldn't budge him. He contacted a buyer and finally decided to let the whole thing go at something of a sacrifice—and that was the last straw for his wife. She'd always been able to make him wear a yellow necktie—or sit down, or stand up—but when she borrowed money he felt that his honor was at stake. It had to be paid back immediately—and he was going to throw the mummy in to punish her. Now will you please tell me—"
"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "Who locked Mary and me into our rooms? And incidentally, what about the postcard that came from Binghamton saying that Betty and Homer had eloped?"
"Mrs. Emerson sent that postcard as a joke," Egbert said, curling his lip. "I believe there are people who regard that sort of thing as humorous."
I caught Ken winking at me, and blushed, while Egbert went on, "It was Mrs. Fredon who locked you in your room. She had to get her husband's body back into the drawer, because the moving people had said they'd be calling for the bed soon, and she was anxious to keep his death secret, so that he would be blamed for the other deaths. She locked you in to keep you out of the way, and, when she had finished, locked herself in, and pushed the key out under the door."
Ken said, "What about his life insurance, if his body was never found?"
"I believe she could have collected after seven years, and in the meantime she had all those rainy-day securities. She'd have been able to keep up this apartment and the cottage."
Lucy had dried up by this time, and she said earnestly, "It just doesn't seem possible that anyone could do such dreadful things for the sake of a cottage and some worm-eaten furniture."
"Oh yes," said Egbert in the voice of one who has seen enough to believe anything. "Some people get almost mental about their homes—get into a passion if anything is disarranged or soiled. Mrs. Fredon was one of the worst. Now—"
"How did you come to pass over Homer when he was in the bin?" Ken asked innocently.
Egbert looked annoyed and murmured, "Mac did the bin, and reported that it was full of radishes, so when I looked myself I took his word for it that there was nothing else there."
"But, Mr. Egbert," Lucy cried, "I think you're wonderful! How did you ever find out about it all—about Mary and the house and the bed?"
Egbert stopped brooding about Mac, the vegetable fancier, and cheered up. "Emerson knew all about it," he said modestly. "That is, he knew that Mr. Fredon was selling the cottage to pay him back and buy the mummy. When the two failed to return from Binghamton, as he thought, he supposed that Mr. Fredon had left his wife and that Mrs. Emerson had gone off with someone else. Mrs. Emerson had been unaware of the loan he had made to Mrs. Fredon, and he thought she had found out about it. Suzy was bothering him too—making extraordinary hinting remarks that meant nothing to him. Of course we can only guess about Suzy, but it seems pretty clear that she discovered the bodies in that bed and thought that Emerson, with whom she was in love, had done it. She couldn't bring herself to tell on him and wanted someone else to make the discovery, so she set about making things look as if Mr. Fredon had come home, so that a search of the apartment would be made."
"How did she find the bodies in the first place?" I wondered.
"She was often sent in here to help with the housework," Egbert explained, "and Mrs. Budd used such opportunities to come in too—when Mrs. Fredon was out—and do a little snooping. Mrs. Fredon made the mistake of not nailing the drawer up at once, and in the meantime Suzy was sent in to do some dusting while the apartment was empty. She discovered the bodies then. She didn't know what to do at first, but when you all came to stay she started by turning the busts in the hall the way Mr. Fredon liked them, then put the golf shoes in the hall and Mr. Fredon's pipe in the living room, and at the party she unlocked Mrs. Fredon's door, knowing that Mrs. Fredon often kept it locked, and Mr. Fredon knew where she kept th
e key—but nobody paid much attention to these things, so she lighted his pipe and then went out and said he was in the kitchen. Apparently the last thing Suzy did was to arrange the couch to look as though Mr. Fredon had slept there, and then that loaded fudge she had eaten began to affect her. I suppose she sat down for a minute and promptly went out like a light. She'd been working, and probably holding off the desire for sleep as long as she could—but she'd eaten more of the candy than the other two. Mrs. Emerson and Mr. Fredon must have been unconscious when Mrs. Fredon returned—and she left them to die while she went to the Emerson apartment, pretending to be concerned about Mr. Fredon's whereabouts. I think she was scared, when she returned this time and realized that she had not nailed the drawer, and she no doubt attended to it at once."
"Seems odd that Mary would let us come and stay in her apartment, when it was loaded like that," Ken commented.
Egbert sighed impatiently. "She didn't want to stay here herself, I'm sure, with only two bodies for company, so she went to the cottage. She'd offered to put you up during your furlough some long time ago—and you turned up at a most inconvenient time. She had to do something—she didn't want you here alone, poking into things, and she didn't want to be here herself, so when she ran into Miss Gates she promptly invited her out. She realized that there'd have to be a chaperon of some sort, so she got Mrs. Davis to take over—and then phoned Miss Gates to lock the door of her bedroom. It was about then that she heard gossip to the effect that Mrs. Emerson would never have eloped with Mr. Fredon, so she came out boldly and announced that her husband would never have gone off with Mrs. Emerson. At the same time she heard about the party you'd arranged, and it scared her. Too many people around—and also, her antiques might be injured—so she came back. Now—"
"I think you're wonderful," Lucy breathed. "Simply wonderful. But why did she accuse me? I've never borrowed a sou from Homer. Why, the old tightwad wouldn't have parted with a nickel."
Egbert rumpled his smooth hair in an exasperated sort of way, but talked over Lucy's head to Ken and me.
The Black Dream_Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries Page 20
