The Silver Leopard

by Helen Reilly

  He said into the receiver, “No, leave Darrell alone, but don’t lose him, on your life,” and dropped the instrument into its cradle.

  He had already detected the hole in Horace Findlater’s statement. Michael Nye’s apartment had been unguarded for perhaps three or four minutes after Catherine Lister fled it and while Findlater was at his own telephone calling the police. Stephen Darrell could have entered Nye’s apartment for the first time after Nye had been killed. He could also have been behind the studio curtains when Catherine Lister went in, could have turned off the lights, taking the leopard with him when he went then, instead of later—

  If the first was true, McKee reflected, if Darrell had had no hand in Nye’s elimination, he was an altruistic as well as a daring and resourceful gentleman to have run the risk of becoming an accessory after the fact of murder for the sake of a girl who was engaged to another man.

  The Scotsman drummed restless fingers on the desk top, looked at a dark slice of low night sky. There was more to Stephen Darrell’s maneuverings than that, more than he had been told, to the activities of the other people so far involved.

  He took the problem home with him, slept on it restlessly without enlightenment, and then, on the following afternoon, through no effort of his own, he was presented with what had so far been missing—the real McCoy, a cold, hard, practical, concrete motive for murder.

  Twenty thousand dollars in bearer bonds had been stolen from Michael Nye’s apartment after nine-thirty-five the night before.

  Chapter Eight - A Seemingly Unimportant Matter

  “AS I SAY, INSPECTOR,” lying back in an immense green-leather chair, Mr. Jonathan Leigh Harris, senior partner of Harris, Fanshaw, Greyson, Skillkull and Harris, went on gently swinging his pince-nez in the study of his apartment on upper Park Avenue, “that’s about all I can tell you. I don’t know where the bonds were originally; I don’t know what subsequently happened to them. I simply know that Michael Nye recovered possession of them sometime late yesterday and that he intended to turn them over this morning.”

  It was enough. It was by no means as good as a feast because they had to have a great deal more. But still it was no famine of information. Harris was co-executor with Michael Nye of the late John Wardwell’s estate. McKee said, “Let me get it straight, Mr. Harris. Five days ago, the income-tax people called your attention to the fact that there was a discrepancy in the return on John Wardwell’s tax payment statement for the year nineteen forty-three.”

  The lawyer said, “That’s right. Keep in mind that John was dead, that he died in December and that we, Mike Nye and myself as his executors, gave what we thought was a true rendition of his assets. We declared everything we found. The tax people contend that John was in possession of a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of these particular bonds at the beginning of that year, and that his records showed no sale, assignment, or gift of two of the bonds, in the total amount of twenty thousand dollars, to any other person or persons.

  “As soon as these men, Mr. Jeffers and Mr. Smith from the Internal Revenue, came to me, I got in touch with Mike Nye. It took doing. He was in New Mexico. I finally got him on the phone. He was going on to Washington direct. Instead he stopped over in New York. He came to my office yesterday afternoon. We talked the matter over. Nye was far closer to John than I was, more familiar with his routine, his affairs. He said he’d look into it and let me know what he found.”

  Harris polished his glasses with the fold of a white handkerchief. “That was at about five o’clock. At—I believe it was around nine-thirty-five last night, Nye called me. I wasn’t in. My wife took the message. Nye asked her to tell me that he had recovered the missing bonds and that he’d see me this morning. And this morning—”

  The gray-faced lawyer shook his head sadly. “Shocking thing, shocking. Don’t know what the world’s coming to. Disorder everywhere. You can’t pick up a newspaper without coming on a half-dozen horrible crimes. Someone, some thief, who knew Nye had the bonds got into his apartment and killed him for them. They’re practically cash—”

  McKee said, “Yes, I’m convinced the bonds were in the envelope Miss Lister saw on his desk when she first entered the living-room and found him. I don’t think there can be any doubt of that.”

  Harris agreed. He hemmed and hawed. “You—eh—think the thief and—eh—murderer—was in the apartment when the girl went in? You don’t—eh—suspect her personally?”

  Suspect? McKee groaned inwardly. Catherine Lister was hanging onto her freedom by her eyelashes. Before Harris called him, before he had come here, he had been subjected to a heavy barrage. Even the commissioner, and Carey was naturally a cautious man, had opened up. “It looks like the girl, McKee. I’m afraid it does.”

  McKee said, “No, I don’t agree—or at least I’m not convinced,” and asked for time. A small amount of it had been conceded to him grudgingly.

  The bonds put another face on things. They at once widened and narrowed the field. Everyone who had been in Nye’s apartment the evening before—and so could have had access to Nye’s key—was under suspicion. Anyone of them could have entered silently to kill. There had been no quarrel, no disturbance. Michael Nye was seated peacefully at his desk when those blows were struck from behind. As far as means was concerned, Angela Wardwell could have done it. The idea was farfetched. You didn’t kill a man you were about to take as a husband without apparent reason. Nevertheless, there it was. Now, if the bonds were important, if Nye had been killed to gain possession of them, she couldn’t possibly be the perpetrator. The recovered bonds were her property. John Wardwell had left her his entire estate with the exception of $100,000 apiece to his niece and nephew, Hat and Tom La Mott.

  Another point troubled him. If his earlier reconstruction was correct, the murderer was on the point of leaving Nye’s apartment, had already unlocked the door when Catherine Lister rang. If that was so—and if the theft of $20,000 was the motive for Nye’s murder—why had the thief left the bonds behind on the painter’s desk in his or her first abortive attempt at escape?

  Fright, confusion, muddled thinking? It could be, but it didn’t ring true. One thing was certain, McKee reflected. Find the person who had removed the bonds, and you would have the perpetrator. More and more he regretted not having searched Catherine Lister last night before she left Michael Nye’s apartment.

  Water over the dam, he consoled himself. Her apartment would have to be searched at once, her person later, if necessary, simply as a precautionary measure.

  The thief was the murderer. He didn’t believe Catherine Lister was the thief. If so, she wouldn’t have told them voluntarily, about the bloodstained and bulging envelope which beyond a reasonable doubt had contained the bonds. Nye had had them at 9:30 when he called Harris. They weren’t in his room at 10:10, and the envelope was gone.

  When had the painter recovered the bonds—and from whom? As far as was known, the only people Nye had seen from the time he left Harris’s office until he died were Nicholas Bray, Angela Wardwell, her niece, her nephew, and her nephew’s wife. There could be others.

  McKee asked the lawyer a question—and was further surprised.

  Harris said, “Oh yes, yes. Mrs. Wardwell knew that the bonds had unaccountably disappeared, couldn’t be found. So did Doctor La Mott. I was in touch with them both early on Friday. But neither of them could give me any information.”

  McKee reflected dryly that they certainly hadn’t given him any inkling, not a whisper. Talk to them both, he decided. “May I—?” he stretched a hand toward the lawyer’s phone, drew it back. The less warning they had, the better.

  The rain was coming down hard. It slanted dismally through the decorous stone length of East Sixty-fourth Street where three gentlemen, not of Verona, were parked in various doorways adjoining the handsome bulk of the Wardwell house, into which their various quarries had recently disappeared. McKee paused for a word with them and glanced through reports.

  Inside the
house, from the long living-room on the second floor, Catherine watched the rain slanting past the windows, her heart a large cold lump of lead.

  They were all there, the six people who knew Mike, knew that he was back in New York and where the leopard which had bludgeoned him to death was to be found. Only the six people? Not proven—There could, there had to be others.

  The family had rallied around her promptly and with vigor. She had been in her own apartment, having a sandwich and coffee with Nicky in front of the fire which somehow couldn’t take the chill out of her bones, when Tom and Francine swooped down on her and swept her here in their car, overriding her protests. “Angela wants to see you. She’s terribly worried; don’t make it any worse for her than it is now.”

  Earlier, Nicky had told Tom over the phone about the leopard. They accepted her innocence without question, with outrage, bewilderment, anger as sharp as it was futile, and made plans for her protection. She had to have help, had to have a lawyer, mustn’t stay alone at the top of the house in Lorilard Place. Not after what had happened.

  Angela was emphatic about it. “You can’t, Catherine. I wouldn’t sleep a wink.”

  Francine said warmly, “Perhaps you’d rather come to Tom and me. I’ve got a lovely room I’ve just done over with the sweetest chintz, and it’s simply crying out for an occupant—you could rest and take it easy. You’re not a wage slave any more. You don’t have to do another lick of work.”

  Catherine flinched from the thought, not of the money, but of the fashion in which it had become hers. Tom agreed with Francine. “I’m not going to say I’m not glad for your sake, Catherine. You deserve it. Now you can be comfortable.”

  She didn’t want to be comfortable at the price that had been paid. That was neither here nor there as far as they were concerned. They didn’t have to live on blood money—and they meant to be kind. With the possible exception of Hat. She said sweetly, “I suppose the police jumped on you with both feet, Catherine, because of Mike’s will—because now you’ll get a lot of money—”

  Angela’s, “Don’t be stupid, Hat,” was harsh, vehement. She repeated her statement of the previous night. “Mike was going to give Catherine money.”

  And then Stephen Darrell came in. He was there now, beside Hat, on a love seat to the right of the elaborately carved and lightless mantel, from above which John Wardwell looked down austerely, mouth pursed, on people involved in an investigation into a murder that was cold, calculated, brutal—and so far successful in that the killer had got away without leaving the slightest clue to his identity behind him.

  Who had taken the leopard from Catherine’s apartment, and who had returned it there? The talk circled around these two questions. Not once, by so much as the flicker of an eyelash did Stephen Darrell show the slightest sign of knowledge concerning the return of the leopard that he shared with Catherine.

  The sharing was noxious to her. She hated it. She had been a fool not to come to an understanding with him last night. She hadn’t realized then the complications it was going to lead to. She wanted no part of Stephen Darrell or his activities. Not, she thought with a wry inner twist, that he appeared to want any part of her. His attention was centered on Hat, whose shoulder his own touched, with whose fingers he played as he listened to the others, to Angela and Tom, Francine and Nicky.

  His poker face was obscurely frightening. Were the others like that? Were they too, wearing masks? Angela, white and weary but more in control of herself than she had been last night; Francine, smart in preposterous pea-green tweeds and a cerise felt sailor, sorrowful about Mike’s death but with a let’s-face-the-future, how-will-this-affect-us? attitude. Tom and Hat showed more signs of wear and tear, but then they had known Mike better. Tom’s eyes were bloodshot, his warm brown skin had a gray tinge to it, and he couldn’t sit still, kept wandering around the room, picking up things and putting them down aimlessly. As for Hat, her gold and white prettiness was muted, dulled, and there were blue smudges under her eyes, as though she hadn’t slept. In spite of the stunning black dress she had on, she looked almost plain, as she had when she was a child, with tow-colored braids and braces on her teeth.

  Nicky swung around from the window. Tall and straight in the uniform he still wore, his lithe blond slenderness was belligerent. “What I’d like to know is—who took the leopard from Catherine’s apartment in the first place?”

  Hat turned her head. She said softly, in the husky voice that seemed too heavy for so frail a throat, “We’d all like to know lots of things, my pet.”

  The remark was apparently aimless. It had a marked effect on Nicky. He flushed darkly and an angry sparkle leaped into his blue eyes. The retort he was on the point of making wasn’t uttered.

  Tom, the mild, Tom, the amiable, erupted. He said with a sudden fury, “Oh, stop it! Talk, talk, talk—what’s the use of talking? None of us knows anything that has any bearing on Mike’s death. Don’t pay any attention to her, Nicky, she’s just trying to provoke you.”

  Hat fitted a slim cigarette into a carved jade holder, “Since when have you been able to read my mind, brother dear?” Her voice was even, silky.

  It wasn’t Angela’s “Children, don’t,” that unlocked their angry eyes. It was Francine. Standing between the sea-green draperies, looking down into the rainy street, she said, “Now what? Here come the police,” and the whole room changed.

  It was as though they were all buckling on armor, testing their weapons in preparation for an assault, Catherine thought. And yet, they had no reason to be afraid, with the exception of Stephen Darrell. He chose retreat.

  He got up from the love seat, said to Hat, “I’ll wait for you in the library. Don’t be any longer than you can help,” and walked out half a minute before Inspector McKee walked in, ushered up the stairs by Mrs. Bettinger.

  McKee was well aware when he entered the house that Stephen Darrell was in it. There was very little any of them had done that day of which he wasn’t aware. Darrell could wait. He was glad to find the others together. It gave them no chance to confer and he could watch their joint reactions.

  They weren’t pleased to see him. It didn’t show particularly on the surface. It showed least of all in Angela Wardwell.

  Lesson in deportment on receiving detectives into the bosom of one’s family on a rainy Sunday afternoon. “Inspector—” Mrs. Wardwell rose from a brocaded chair near the darkly gleaming bulk of a grand piano. She was quiet, composed, gracious; a woman in sorrow, in excellently cut black faille and pearls, bearing the intrusion with dignity and restraint.

  She introduced her nephew and her nephew’s wife. Tom La Mott insisted on giving McKee a hearty handshake. “Nasty day, isn’t it, Inspector?”

  “It is indeed.”

  McKee didn’t sit down. He laid his hat on a Renaissance table that should have been in the Metropolitan, took a red leather notebook from his pocket. Outside, the November dusk was thickening. The room was dim. “Could we have a little light?”

  Francine La Mott crossed to the east wall, touched a switch, and softly shaded brilliance revealed yet more treasures.

  McKee proceeded briskly to business. He told them, succinctly, of Jonathan Harris’s telephone call, of his visit to the lawyer, and what he had discovered.

  At the first mention of the bearer bonds, Nicholas Bray showed sharp surprise. He appeared to be genuinely startled. Perhaps. Catherine Lister started to speak and stopped. The other four were silent, attentive, not outwardly perturbed. When McKee finished, Angela Wardwell said, “Yes, we knew about the bonds, Inspector.” Tom La Mott nodded heavily, an elbow on the piano. Francine La Mott said, leaning toward McKee, her voice eager, “Don’t say you’ve discovered them, Inspector,”

  “Not yet, Mrs. La Mott.”

  “Oh.” She sank back.

  He turned to the older woman. “Why didn’t you mention the subject of the missing bearer bonds to me last night, Mrs. Wardwell?”

  “Why?” Angela Wardwell opened her
eyes a little at that. Her imperturbability remained unbroken. “I—it didn’t occur to me to. Michael did speak of them when we were with him on Friday evening, but the matter didn’t seem particularly important.”

  Twenty thousand dollars in negotiable securities, a lost twenty thousand, not important. Beau Geste. Very good. Angela Wardwell was a wealthy woman. But people with money, ordinary people, generally liked to stay that way, and the late John Wardwell’s widow didn’t look either extravagant or impractical. He moved on to more immediately pressing considerations.

  And then it came, the positive statement, made by four people, that was so important. They made it separately and together—and they couldn’t all be lying.

  When they were with Michael Nye in his apartment on Friday night, the bonds had not yet been located.

  That meant—attention quickened keenly in the Scotsman—that Michael Nye had had a visitor after these people left; a visitor who had brought the bonds with him when he arrived at between 9:25 when Angela Wardwell went, and 9:35 when Nye called the Harris home saying he had recovered the bonds.

  It changed the entire shape of the case. Among other things it proved that Catherine Lister had been telling the truth. Nicholas Bray was the first to see this.

  “That shows,” he exclaimed in triumph, “that there was someone in Mike Nye’s when Catherine went in, that the murderer was actually there behind the studio curtains—”

  McKee nodded. “I should say so.”

  Angela Wardwell had been extremely worried about her husband’s niece, he thought. There was open relief in her long sigh, her relaxed posture. Francine La Mott was voluble, congratulatory. She got up and kissed the younger girl. “Darling, of course we all knew—Just the same, it’s—”