Banking on Death

by Emma Lathen

  “Robert was expecting a woman that night. She came a few hours after you left. She found the body and assumed that her husband was the murderer. So she pocketed the claim check, thinking it was evidence against her husband, and left without giving the alarm. When she found out that her husband had an impeccable alibi, she delivered the claim check to the police.”

  Thatcher felt that it was only tactful to gloss over his own activities in the discovery of this evidence. Fortunately it did not seem to occur to Schneider to question Thatcher’s intimacy with the police in Buffalo. This removed one embarrassment from a conversation already rich in social awkwardness.

  “It’s just like Robert to be involved in a sordid affair with a married woman,” said Schneider censoriously, with a return to his old manner. Ken silently marveled at the outlook which could take murder, but not adultery, in its stride.

  “I’m afraid that he was a remarkably unpleasant man,” mused Thatcher.

  “You could not fully appreciate his unpleasantness without having met him,” said Schneider. “It’s why I killed him, of course,” he went on in a conversational tone of voice.

  “Because he was unpleasant!” Ken was outraged. “But surely, sir, there was some other reason.”

  “The contract, Nicolls,” said Thatcher. “Surely you’ve realized that it was the same contract that the mill in Framingham was losing and that the mill in Buffalo was getting.”

  “But I still don’t see—”

  “Let me explain,” interrupted Schneider. “After I stopped in New York to talk to you both about the trust, I went on to Beloit to find out why we were losing the contract. I thought it was some incredible imbecility on Martin’s part. But no, they explained that this man, Robert Schneider, had a new process and he seemed capable of steering it through the pilot runs. I knew at once that it could mean the end of us, and I was sure that it must be our Robert Schneider. After all, I’d just been talking with you about him a few days before. It was exactly the sort of thing his father was always fooling around with, but his father could never get it to the production stage. If the process was successful, and it was handled by any other firm, we would have to go into bankruptcy. I knew then that I would have to talk with Robert.”

  “Did you intend to do it then?” asked Thatcher curiously.

  “No, of course not. The plane was supposed to be non-stop. But when the opportunity arose, I went to see him. I explained to Robert very carefully the implication of his discovery and what it would mean to the family firm. I also explained to him that the trust was coming to an end, and he could count on a $100,000. Then I made him an offer—it was an extremely generous offer. A very large salary, more than he was getting at Buffalo, and the opportunity to buy into the firm with his capital.”

  “What did he say?” asked Ken.

  “He didn’t really say anything about my offer. He just started to think out loud. I don’t believe I can explain it to you. He was totally indifferent to my presence, totally uninterested in everything I had told him about the family business. He was calculating how he could use the $100,000 to bring pressure on somebody called Michaels, get himself a controlling interest in Buffalo Industrial, and then build it up to the point where he could run every other firm out of business. You understand, he was planning to use the money from the Schneider family trust to ruin the Schneider family. I think that I could have stood it if he had just said no, or if he had explained that he was committed to the Buffalo firm, or if he had just bothered to be polite. But he didn’t notice my existence at all; I just wasn’t important enough to his plans for him to pretend, even though he was planning to ruin me and my family. Then I must have picked up the book end and hit him. The next thing I knew, I was standing there, still in my hat and coat."

  “And gloves,” interjected Thatcher.

  White-faced and incurious, Schneider stared dully at the banker. “You didn’t leave any fingerprints,” explained Thatcher.

  “I never thought of that,” said Schneider. “I never really thought at all. Suddenly I was standing there, looking down at a man whom I had just murdered.” Schneider shook his head slowly as if to clear his thoughts. “The next thing I remember I was running back to the Statler through the snow.” Arthur Schneider brought his story to a close in a mildly astonished voice as if he still could not entirely credit his conduct in Buffalo. It was noticeable that there was not a particle of remorse in his voice. He saw the shock on Ken’s face and explained calmly, “All I wanted to do was to save my family.”

  “You succeeded,” said Thatcher after a short silence. He, at least, had absorbed whatever shock he felt at Arthur Schneider’s crime a good twenty hours earlier. “You got back your contract, and you have saved your family.”

  “Yes,” Arthur sounded slightly amused. “Martin thinks I got that contract back through personal adroitness; he still hasn’t realized that the people in Beloit just wouldn’t trust the Michaels firm to carry out Robert’s process. They were afraid of bugs. And if Martin is really on his toes, I suppose he will be able to do well enough with the firm to have something to hand over to my son. But, all this is going to have very little to do with me. My efforts are over.” He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes.

  “Nonsense,” said Thatcher firmly. “You should do what you planned to do from the start. Go home and tell your family. It will be less of a shock coming from you. You mustn’t stop thinking of them at this point. And, if you go to Massachusetts, that will delay your arrest long enough for you to take legal advice. I realize that you’re tired, but, in all probability, you will have a good long time to rest in the future.”

  “You mean you don’t think I’ll be given the death penalty,” said Schneider detachedly.

  “Almost definitely not. There is nothing to show premeditation. The prosecution will probably confine themselves to a charge of second degree murder.”

  “I’m not so sure that I’d prefer that,” said Schneider thoughtfully. Nicolls wondered where Thatcher had acquired all this erudition on the law of homicide. Probably boned it up at night since all this started. The duties of a banker certainly seemed variegated.

  “It is not a question of what you prefer,” responded Thatcher austerely. “It is a question of your duty. You should go home.” The words were a clarion call to Schneider. After all, the expression of unpleasant actions in the terms of duty was a concept very familiar to him.

  “Yes, of course. It is the only thing to do. I wonder,” he hesitated, almost shyly, before addressing Nicolls, “I wonder, Ken, if you would care to come with me.”

  Ken started visibly as the significance of Schneider’s request came home to him. Arthur could not have asked him more plainly what his intentions were with respect to Arthur’s daughter. Murderer or no, Arthur Schneider remained invincibly Victorian and invincibly New England.

  Ken hesitated for only a moment. “It would give me great pleasure,” he said with the formality suitable to the occasion.

  It was almost as if the two men had sealed some sort of pact for the protection of the Schneider women.

  Thatcher watched them go out together, shoulder to shoulder. He wondered what Ken and his prospective father-in-law would talk about on the plane.