First Come, First Kill

by Frances Lockridge

  For the record in his own mind, Heimrich made a correction. Why should the same rifle shoot them both?

  That the bullets which had killed Mitchell, hurt the dog, came from one rifle had taken only minutes to determine—the minutes needed to set the bullets in a comparison microscope and have a look at their riflings. Heimrich wished that the findings in his own mind could be as precise—could, in fact, qualify as findings of any kind.

  If Colonel were a man—that would make it easy enough. Colonel, as a man, had seen something he shouldn’t have seen, would be able to tell about it. But Colonel, not being a man, could not really tell anybody about anything. At least—

  A dog might, of course, bring home something revealing. A swatch of cloth from somebody’s trousers—a thing like that might be revealing, when the lab got to work on it. But, Colonel hadn’t. Colonel had a minimal interest in human trousers, which was all to the good. Something else? Colonel had not, so far as Heimrich knew, brought home anything at all since Old Tom was shot.

  It was clear now that Perrin had not shot the big dog by accident, as the big dog wandered onto the pistol range. This did not eliminate, of course, the possibility that the shooting of Colonel was an accident. If it had been deer season, the theory of an accident would have been reasonably persuasive. (But would any man go deer hunting with the same gun he had just used to kill a man? Heimrich shrugged over that one. It is impossible to tell what a man will do. Particularly, Heimrich thought, a man who would mistake a Great Dane for a deer. Particularly, to Heimrich’s somewhat prejudiced mind, a man who would hunt deer in the first place. Not that there weren’t too many deer by hundreds.)

  Heimrich realized he was wandering, and brought his mind back. His mind came back to the uneasy possibility that it had been wandering for some time.

  ‘Why on earth?’ Why on earth would Wade Thompson charter a plane in Tonaganda and fly down to kill a dog? Why would Enid Mitchell, aided and abetted by a no doubt rising young lawyer, stop off on her way to surrender to the police to shoot a dog? As for the syndicate—the answer to that was, clearly, ‘Come now!’

  There had been suggestions that Old Tom had ‘snooped’ around. Had he and Colonel snooped in the same area, and had both been caught at it? In that event, an area close by—geographically close, close, one would think, in time. Suppose Old Tom had not been T. Lyman Mitchell? Would he still have died? The answer to that was ‘Ouch!’

  Heimrich had brought the splinter from Colonel’s paw back to his office. The splinter was more than an inch long; half of it had lodged in the dog’s pad. Odd Colonel had not bitten it out. Perhaps not odd—Colonel had had bigger troubles.

  Splinter from a weathered pine board, the lab man thought, and Heimrich thought. A board which had never been painted, or not painted for years. The lab would be surer the next day, when it would go over the splinter again—when it would be more fully staffed than it was on a Sunday. A shed door—the splinter might have come from something like that. A—

  Heimrich’s mind checked. The abandoned cabin on the Waltham place, the cabin Mitchell had holed up in. It had been long without paint. Had Colonel, for reasons at the moment inexplicable, found the cabin and pawed at the door? It was a longish way from the house Colonel lived in. Big dogs can roam far. And limp home far, bleeding badly, and make it home? He might have done. Perhaps the wound had not bled so freely at the start.

  Had he and Forniss, and Ackerman too, missed something in the cabin, something worth defending with a rifle? Heimrich found it hard to believe. Nevertheless—

  Corporal Raymond Crowley was on duty. Crowley was dispatched to look. Had a big dog’s heavy nails scored the cabin door?

  Crowley had been on standby in the barracks, and taken moments to instruct. It took longer to relay a message to Sergeant Charles Forniss, sitting in a car on a quiet street in Tonaganda. Forniss would go up to the house and ask. He would think of a pretext, unless Heimrich had one of his own handy?

  Forniss was to use his own judgment.

  It is a good way from Hawthorne Barracks to the city of Tonaganda. It is a good bit farther from Hawthorne to London. Official, urgent, to Chief Inspector Robert Drake, C.I.D., New Scotland Yard. Late afternoon in London; late Sunday afternoon. At home if not in office? Or on a job? Official, urgent. A priority call.

  Prior, Heimrich wondered, to what? An upstate city, an overseas metropolis. Man and dog fell on my own driveway, Heimrich thought. In my own front yard.

  Forniss reported first. He had had to walk half a block to a house; drive a block to a telephone. He had not needed a pretext—Wade Thompson was not at home.

  ‘A few minutes after you were here, sergeant,’ Mrs Thompson had said, her tone surprised. ‘You didn’t suggest you would need to see him again so soon.’

  A minor point, Forniss told her. Nothing urgent about it. A business trip? On Sunday?

  There was nothing surprising about that. If a sales manager wants to be somewhere bright and early on Monday morning he must leave home on Sunday. Why, to La Guardia, to catch a plane for Chicago. Yes, by plane to New York.

  ‘Nothing urgent,’ Forniss said. ‘A minor point I was told to ask about. No point in bothering you, Mrs Thompson. Unless—’

  Mrs Wade Thompson had no idea at all where Mr and Mrs William Peters might be staying in London, if they were staying in London. Forniss had not supposed she would have.

  ‘Call you from the airport,’ Forniss told Heimrich. ‘I’ll send Colonel a get-well card.’

  It began to appear, after half an hour had passed, that Chief Inspector Drake was not at his office. Probably at home, Heimrich thought; probably working in his garden. Heimrich had met Robert Drake the previous autumn, during an international police conference in New York. He and Drake had hit it off. Drake, who lived in a London suburb, was apparently a great one for gardening. He spoke with enthusiasm of vegetable marrows. This Sunday afternoon he, presumably, was among them. If so, it was taking time to extricate him.

  Heimrich had a sandwich and coffee sent in. He returned to brooding. Had he been prying—‘snooping’ was perhaps the word; the recurrent word—into a past which had no significance? Was it, possibly, Old Tom who had been shot to death, not T. Lyman Mitchell? Firmly, Heimrich tried to make his mind accept the word ‘nonsense.’ The past was in it; money was in it. The man who had been killed was T. Lyman Mitchell, ex-justice of the Supreme Court of the state of New York; fugitive for six years from something; a man who had left perhaps half a million dollars to a daughter, or to a daughter and a wife. (And to a man who was posing as the husband of the wife.) Of course.

  Heimrich had left his office door open. Raymond Crowley, still in civilian slacks and jacket, still appearing to be in uniform, stood in the doorway and Heimrich said, ‘Yes, Ray?’ Crowley came in and, when gestured at, sat down.

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ Crowley said. ‘Maybe—’

  There were marks on the door of the cabin on the Waltham place which might have been made by a pawing dog. Only—they did not seem to be very recent. Only—Crowley had been unable to find a place where the dog, if it was a dog, had pulled a splinter out of the weathered wood.

  ‘Also,’ Crowley said, ‘if it was an animal it might, just might, have been a bobcat. There aren’t many of them around any more, but now and then one does turn up. The Stamford museum had one a few years back—big, handsome devil. Caught up around Danbury. These marks looked deeper than a dog would make. A bobcat’s claws would go deeper.’

  The marks were on the outside of the door. Crowley had gone into the cabin. There were no signs of scratching, by anything, on the inside of the door. There were no signs that anybody had been in the cabin since the lab boys had given it a going-over—a fruitless going-over, as it had turned out. Nobody had prized up floor boards, to look for, extract, hidden treasure. Not that the lab boys would have missed any such hiding place.

  ‘Looks like a blank,’ Heimrich said, and Crowley said he was sorry, but it d
id.

  Crowley had brought back a splinter of his own, pulled out of the door. He put it on Heimrich’s desk, beside the splinter from the dog’s paw.

  They were similar enough—pine splinters both. Heimrich picked up the one Crowley had retrieved.

  ‘Traces of paint,’ he said.

  Crowley nodded.

  ‘Not much left,’ he said. ‘But some.’

  ‘Too much,’ Heimrich said. ‘Ray, suppose you could track a dog? Your good deed for the day, that would be. Back-track on him?’

  ‘I can give it a try,’ Crowley said and added, ‘sir.’

  ‘Give it a try, Ray,’ Heimrich said, and reached for the telephone as it rang.

  ‘Ready with the London call, sir,’ a distant voice said, and Heimrich pointed Crowley to the door. There were then a number of odd sounds, shuffling sounds, from the telephone. Then a very distant voice said, ‘Drake here.’

  ‘Inspector,’ Heimrich said, and another voice said, ‘Ready with the London call, captain.’ At almost the same instant another voice said that it was ‘trunks.’ Heimrich said, ‘Damn.’ Then Robert Drake, as clearly as if at a telephone a block away, said, ‘That you, captain? Carry on.’

  ‘How’re the marrows?’ Heimrich said.

  ‘Given them up,’ Drake said. ‘Five years I grew them, and the wife and I realized, all at once, that we didn’t like the ruddy things. That what you called about?’

  ‘No,’ Heimrich said. ‘A man named Peters—William Peters. Flew in yesterday. Probably Pan-American.’

  ‘A pinch? If it’s that, you’ll have to go through chan—’

  ‘Not a pinch,’ Heimrich said. ‘A question. I’ll go through channels, verify as requested. At a guess, he’s still in London. Can do?’

  ‘Always in such a hurry,’ Chief Inspector Drake said. ‘Yes. I suppose you’ve no idea as to hotels? He’ll be using his own name?’

  ‘None,’ Heimrich said. ‘No reason he shouldn’t be. His wife’s with him. Vacation trip.’

  ‘How’s he fixed? I mean—Savoy-type bloke? Slather-it-around type?’

  ‘He’s probably well enough heeled,’ Heimrich said. ‘I don’t know his habits, inspector. He’s medium-sized. Black hair. Wears glasses. Longish face, probably.’

  ‘Right,’ Drake said. ‘It may take a bit of time, y’know. The question?’

  ‘Where he was Thursday night. Specifically, was he at the Old Stone Inn in a place named Van Brunt, in Putnam County, in New York State? Did he check out of there Friday evening?’

  ‘Suppose,’ Drake said, ‘he says it’s none of our ruddy business? Which it isn’t, y’know.’

  ‘I doubt if he will. If he does, that’s interesting too.’

  ‘Right,’ Drake said. ‘I’ll get them on it. Ring you back when I’ve anything. By the way—the tolls are your treat, captain.’

  Heimrich knew that.

  ‘Slap-dash, you people,’ Drake said. ‘Take me miles of forms—’

  ‘It will me,’ Heimrich said. ‘After the event.’

  Drake again said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘That’s all of it?’

  ‘That’s—’ Heimrich began.

  ‘Give my best to that pretty wife of yours,’ Drake said. ‘Tell her—’

  ‘Wait,’ Heimrich said, as two things met in his mind; as Susan and the name of a hotel met in his mind.

  ‘At the Savoy,’ Heimrich said, ‘there’s supposed to be a Mrs Oliver Perrin. First name of Marian. Was a few days ago, anyway.’

  ‘All right,’ Drake said. ‘Was she at this inn on Thurs—’

  ‘No,’ Heimrich said. ‘Just what she looks like. Should be dark haired. Should weigh—oh, around a hundred and twenty. Perhaps a bit more. Should be about five-six. Should be in her middle forties.’

  ‘Around nine stone,’ Drake said, translating. ‘American accent?’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ Heimrich said.

  ‘No questions of this one?’

  ‘No,’ Heimrich said. ‘Just a look-see. Oh—a picture would be nice to have, but I’d rather she didn’t spot anything.’

  ‘I’ll send a policewoman,’ Drake said. ‘Cable or wireless a picture if we get one. You do slather it around, don’t you?’

  ‘Millionaire Americans,’ Heimrich said. ‘It’s a murder, inspector. Former state Supreme Court justice. Might even seep into the London press.’

  ‘Oh,’ Drake said. ‘Makes a difference, that. We’ll get whacking.’

  ‘By the way,’ Heimrich said. ‘What replaces the vegetable marrows?’

  Drake said, ‘Eh?’ He said, ‘Oh.’ He said, ‘Roses, captain.’

  Nothing would come of it, Heimrich thought. Mrs Oliver Perrin would turn out to look like Mrs Oliver Perrin. Whether she could spell her friends’ names or not. After all, a good many Marjories are Margerys.

  Forniss called from the Tonaganda Airport. There was a scheduled morning flight from Tonaganda to La Guardia. Wade Thompson had not taken it. Because—

  A charter service operated light planes from the airport. Thompson had chartered one of the planes. The flight plan showed La Guardia the destination. The plane had been logged out a little before ten. It was, for a light plane, a fast one. It should have touched down at La Guardia by now. Forniss had the make of the plane, its registration number.

  Heimrich called La Guardia. It took time. It was, it seemed to Merton Heimrich, a day on which everything took time. He held the telephone, smoked a cigarette. At intervals he was told that La Guardia was sorry, but that it was taking time. Finally he was told that the described airplane had not landed at La Guardia. It also had not been in contact with La Guardia.

  Five minutes later, radios squawked in cars of the State Police patrol—squawked for miles around. Nearest car to Westchester County Airport to proceed at once and check on the arrival of airplane No.—. Other cars to cover smaller airports in area, including field at Armonk. Teletypewriters began, over a wider area, to talk briskly to themselves. Information requested by New York State Police as to whereabouts of airplane No.—.

  But the name of Wade Thompson was not mentioned on either radio or teletype. Not time for that yet.

  The break he had been waiting for? Heimrich hoped so, sitting in his office at Hawthorne. It looked a bit as if Mr Thompson might have lost his nerve, decided to run for it. Only—Only, why not La Guardia, from which a fleeing man could fly anywhere? Only—What had frightened him? Forniss? Heimrich very much doubted it. Forniss did not frighten without intent, without preparations in advance. So—

  Damn, Merton Heimrich thought. He had been told, as good as told. He telephoned the Old Stone Inn.

  Brian Fields and Miss Enid Mitchell had lunched at the inn. They might be still around—they might be on the terrace in the rear, looking at the ducks. They might—

  They were looking at the ducks. If Captain Heimrich would wait?

  He waited. He heard, ‘Fields speaking.’

  ‘Miss Mitchell,’ Heimrich said. ‘A question that will do no damage to your client, counselor.’

  The girl, Heimrich was almost certain, was standing beside the tall lawyer. There was a moment during which he could hear the sound of voices, not make out words. Then the girl said, ‘What is it, captain?’

  ‘At the house,’ Heimrich said. ‘You said your stepfather would deny he had been at the inn. Did you merely assume he would? Or—did you know?’

  ‘Why,’ the girl said. ‘I knew. Didn’t I tell you that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Before we came to you,’ she said, ‘I—we—thought we ought to—well, to give him a chance. I telephoned him. Asked him if he had been there. He said he hadn’t.’

  ‘You told him what you planned to do? To tell us you had seen him there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Heimrich hesitated a moment. He said, ‘Let me speak to Mr Fields.’

  ‘All right,’ Fields said. ‘I heard enough.’

  ‘No,’ Heimrich said. ‘I’m not sure you di
d. Mr Thompson seems to have left home rather abruptly. On a business trip, it’s supposed to be. Miss Mitchell is the only person I know of who could make a really positive identification. I can send—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Fields said. ‘I’ll be around, captain.’

  It was a busy telephone. It waited to be replaced. It touched down and rang.

  Described airplane had landed at Westchester County Airport at 1209 hours. Had discharged passenger. Had refueled and taken off, flight plan for Tonaganda, New York, at 1305 hours. Passenger giving name of Wade Thompson had rented drive-yourself car. Had left airport at approximately 1230 hours. License number of car, WP—.

  Radios talked again. Rental car, Chevrolet sedan, current model, black, license number WP—to be located, not interfered with, kept under observation.

  Heimrich’s telephone rang. Call from London coming through. Please stand by for London call.

  ‘Had a little bit of luck,’ Chief Inspector Robert Drake said. ‘Turned your man up first place we tried. Having cocktails with the missis. Says, “Damn Thompson to hell.” Strong American accent.’

  ‘Try to be tolerant, inspector,’ Heimrich said. ‘And—?’

  The question as to his Thursday-night whereabouts had not, in itself, surprised William Peters. The source of the question evidently had. ‘What is it to you people?’ he had asked, and the detective sergeant had thought the astonishment in his voice authentic. The sergeant had said, ‘Request for cooperation, sir.’

  Thursday night, then, Peters had not been at the Old Stone Inn in Van Brunt. He had not been near it. He had been at a motel on the Connecticut Turnpike, and if anybody wanted to prove it they had only to ask. And—

  ‘What the hell does Thompson think he’s up to? Called me at six this morning—six, and we’d been seeing the town—and wanted me to say that I’d been at this inn. Hell, I was never at that inn. What the—?’

  The sergeant had been patient. He had also gone judiciously beyond his instructions. What had this Mr Thompson given as his reason for the request?