Was there any food for thought in the fact that Bulfinch had come on duty early this past evening? He could hardly have orchestrated Purvis Mink’s wife’s gallstone attack, unless by some wild flight of coincidence Mrs. Mink happened to be an old sweetheart of his and they’d concocted a plot together. However, what if, for the sake of argument, Bulfinch had lied about not having known he had an uncle living in the same small village as his old army buddy, and not having known he was down in the will as one of that surprisingly rich uncle’s heirs? Ottermole had accused Bulfinch to his face of lying about that, and Ottermole was turning out to be not quite the blithering idiot Shandy had always thought him.
All right, suppose Alonzo had managed to wangle an invitation out of Silvester Lomax for the express purpose of coming to Balaclava Junction and killing the gander who was going to lay him a fat golden egg. Bulfinch was a fast thinker, a fast mover, and—aha!—a tidy chap by nature. His reaction to Mary Ellen’s unexpected tale of woe had shown that. He’d got shaved, combed, and dressed, packed his bags, changed his bed, and been out of Silvester’s guest room in roughly five minutes yesterday afternoon. He’d been mighty adroit about overcoming Ottermole’s hostility and gaining permission to use his late uncle’s apartment, too.
For somebody so efficient and resourceful, would it have been impossible to kill Ungley and not get caught? There were bicycles enough around campus. Suppose Bulfinch had swiped one, pedaled like hell down the hill, slain his uncle, and raced back in time to punch the next clock on his round.
That would have meant knowing exactly where Ungley was going to be at exactly the right moment, but a man boarding with Evelyn Lomax wouldn’t have had much trouble finding out anything connected with Betsy’s place. Considering the restricted life the old man had led, Evelyn could have told Bulfinch between one breath and the next all he’d have needed to know about Ungley’s comings and goings. And forgotten she’d ever said it, like as not.
Judging from the matter-of-fact way Evelyn had been going off to her ladies’ tea and leaving Bulfinch asleep in the house, the Lomaxes must have been treating Bulfinch as one of the family, letting him fend for himself a fair amount since he’d started the job at the college. Left alone there, he could even have phoned to arrange a secret rendezvous with Ungley behind the museum after the lecture.
Crazy as it sounded, Bulfinch might have managed to make such a meeting sound plausible to a muddleheaded old coot who went in for theatrical gestures like carrying a cane stuffed with melted lead. Being himself the entertainment of the evening, Ungley could easily have wound up his talk by the appointed time and been out there waiting when Bulfinch swooped in for the kill.
That could account for the disproportionately small amount of blood found on the harrow tine, perhaps. Bulfinch would have been too pressed for time on his first trip to hang around and stage an accident; simply whanged his uncle and left him for dead. Later on, perhaps at his supper break or whatever they called it, he’d have made a second trip.
He’d have had plenty of time then. The guards no doubt staggered their breaks so no two would be off duty at the same time. That would have been when he’d have tidily wiped the cane, and smeared the blood on the harrow peg. There wouldn’t be much of it because clots would have formed by then. He’d have set his uncle against the harrow, gone through Ungley’s pockets to find his keys and perhaps that five hundred dollars Pommell was so concerned about, then slipped across lots to search the apartment.
That would also explain why the files had been stolen. Bulfinch couldn’t have afforded to linger over all those folders in the house. His break would have been running out. He’d still have Ungley’s keys to get rid of, hence another trip back to the clubhouse, where he’d most likely have left the bicycle in any case. Putting the keys inside rather than back in the old man’s pocket would entail more time and risk, but support the plausibility of Ungley’s having locked himself out and having an accident while trying to get back in, just as everybody except Betsy Lomax had been quite willing to believe.
Maybe the risk wouldn’t have been so great. Forcing a window in that ramshackle building oughtn’t to be any real chore. Why in thunder didn’t the Balaclavians, with all their money and pretensions, squander a few dollars on cleaning and repairs?
Never mind that now. Here he had Bulfinch, theoretically, with the uncle’s files stuffed into plastic trash bags, as Mrs. Lomax had deduced. They’d be easy enough to carry that way, tied together by their tops and slung over Bulfinch’s shoulders as he ran back through the shortcut, across his bicycle carrier when he pedaled back to the college. As to what he’d be hoping to find, one could only guess. Some heirloom he was afraid might be claimed by the Balaclavians if he didn’t get to it first? Family letters he could use to prove he was the rightful heir or conceal the fact that he wasn’t?
Whoever had taken the risk of searching Ungley’s apartment and carrying away those files must have had great hopes, great fears, or feathers where his brain ought to be. Shandy did not think Alonzo Persifer Bulfinch was a stupid man.
Hiding the bags on campus would make sense. Buifinch could hardly have lugged them back to Silvester’s house without letting his driver see them, and then having to think up a lie that would fool a trained security guard. Where could he have hidden them at the Lomaxes’? Evelyn was surely the sort of woman who cleaned under beds and in dark corners. Bulfinch himself had remarked that the campus was the only area around here that he knew really well.
All right, so suppose Bulfinch had put the sacks around here someplace handy? Suppose he’d taken advantage of his early arrival, before the time clocks got turned on for the late shift, to drag them out and settle down for a quiet perusal of their contents? Suppose Mrs. Smuth had come along for no good reason and caught him at it? He’d be apt to recognize her because he’d watched the news with Betsy Lomax. Mrs. Smuth must have been in some of the television pictures and his hostess would have pointed her out to him.
Even if he didn’t recognize her, he’d know she meant trouble. Merely being seen with Ungley’s files would be enough to brand him as his uncle’s murderer, considering the cash value of his motive. If he’d killed to get them and what went with them, why wouldn’t he kill again to hang on to what he’d got?
Shandy brought himself up short. He was supposing too damn much these days. Why not try for some facts? “How did you happen to find the body, Bulfinch?” he asked.
“I just looked and there she was. That red coat of hers caught the light from my lantern. First I thought it was fallen leaves, then I realized it couldn’t be, so I walked over and took a closer look. Of course I knew right away what had happened. I’d have had to be blind not to. It was awful, I can tell you. She must have been a pretty woman, too.”
“Don’t you recognize her?”
“Professor, I’d say her own mother would have a heck of a time recognizing her now. Should I?”
“You very likely saw her on the news tonight.”
“You mean she was mixed up in that crazy Halloween party, or whatever it was? Doesn’t seem the type, somehow. I thought she must have been the school nurse, or a housemother or some such. What in heck was she doing on campus so late? You know who she was, Professor?”
“Ruth Smuth. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Oh sure, now I recognize the coat. Betsy did point her out to me on the news. She was telling me that was the woman who ran a big fund drive for the college some years back and raised the money to build the silo. Gee, this is even worse than I thought. A real friend and benefactor like her.”
“Urrgh,” said Thorkjeld Svenson. Shandy’s heart sank another notch. He was about to ask if the doctor had been sent for and the police station notified when Melchett and Ottermole rushed in tandem toward them.
“Where’s the body?” Melchett was demanding testily. “I wish to God you people would space out your corpses a little wider. Two murders within twenty-four hours is too damn many for my
taste.”
President Svenson gave the doctor a look. “Why ours?”
Melchett flinched. “I’m sorry, President. I just meant—Professor Ungley—”
“Emeritus. Means retired. Happened in the village.”
“Er—so it did. Puts a different—and this—good Lord! Can that be Mrs. Smuth?”
“Same coat.”
“That’s right,” Ottermole put in. “I saw her wearing it on the news. I was wondering how come she got mixed up in that nutty demonstration.”
“So were we,” Shandy said before Svenson could erupt. “We’re hoping Congressman Sill will be able to cast some light on the matter. If he’ll shut up long enough for us to ask him a few questions,” he added, for by now he was feeling pretty vicious. “Ottermole, would you have something we can spread on the ground so Dr. Melchett can get to the body without destroying any clues that might be lying around?”
“Sure.” Ottermole ambled over to his cruiser and came back with a smallish cardboard box in his hand. “Plastic trash bags,” he explained. “Never know when they’ll come in handy.”
He laid a sort of processional carpet corpseward. Melchett stepped gingerly over the slippery plastic and knelt to exercise the mysteries of his calling. The other members of the party stood around trying not to watch and wondering if their companions felt as sick as they did.
“Was she—you know—attacked, Doctor?” Ottermole asked when he couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I can see no outward sign of rape or other physical assault, though of course something may show up in the autopsy. It appears to have been a quick, clean strangling from behind. Apparently she didn’t even have a chance to struggle. Her fingernails are intact, and she wore them long.”
“Any idea how long she’s been dead?”
“I wouldn’t want to be pinned down, but offhand I’d say between five and seven hours. Not much more, and almost certainly not less.”
“That’s interesting,” Shandy remarked. “We were all under the impression she’d left the campus along with the other—er—outsiders. Didn’t you think so, President?”
“Saw her. Drove off. Too fast. From a no-parking zone.” Svenson fumed in sulphur-laden silence for a moment, then added, “Husband.”
“What?” yelped Ottermole.
“What President Svenson means is that we ought to contact Mr. Smuth and see whether he can enlighten us as to his wife’s subsequent movements,” Shandy translated.
“Oh sure. She’d have had to go home and cook his supper, wouldn’t she?” Clearly Ottermole took it for granted the rest of Balaclava County existed in the same state of contented atavism as his own household. “He’ll have to be told anyway. I suppose I better bust the news myself. Okay if I use the phone in the security office, Lonz?”
“Go right ahead,” said the chief suspect. “Silvester won’t mind.”
“I thought Silvester was off duty.”
“He came back to cover for Clarence. We can’t leave the office unmanned, no matter what, on account of the signal board. I ought to be out doing rounds, myself. You folks don’t need me here any longer, do you?”
Ottermole glanced at Shandy, got a shrug for an answer, and shook his head. “Stick around a few minutes. How long you been on duty, Lonz?”
“Since twenty-three minutes to nine.” Bulfinch explained yet again about Purvis Mink’s wife’s gallstones. “So the way it works out, this was my second trip along here. There wasn’t any body the first time.”
“You sure?”
“Being sure’s what I get paid for, Fred. Anyway, she’d have been hard to miss, wouldn’t she?”
That was true enough. The killer hadn’t made any great effort to hide Mrs. Smuth’s body, though that would have been simple enough to do. He could have dragged her farther into the shrubbery, removed that red coat and stuffed it away somewhere, and strewn dead leaves or branches over the corpse as camouflage. It was almost as if he—or she, since a reasonably strong woman could have handled that petite form easily enough—had wanted the body found right away.
No, not right away. She must have been dead some while before she’d been laid out so neatly beside the path; unless Melchett was far out on the time span during which she’d been killed or Alonzo Bulfinch was lying about her not having been there when he’d made his first round.
“Could you tell us exactly when you passed here before?” he asked the guard.
“Six minutes to eleven on the dot. I finished Purve’s last round, see, before I started my own. Then Clarence decided I’d better keep the same route, though he arranged it a little differently.”
“According to Dr. Melchett, Mrs. Smuth must have been dead well before eleven,” Shandy reminded him.
“I never said she wasn’t dead. I only said she wasn’t here. Which means,” Bulfinch wrapped it up in his orderly fashion, “she must have been someplace else.”
“But why should anybody kill her someplace else and bring the body here?” Ottermole wondered. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It might if you strangled the woman out of exasperation, then realized it wouldn’t be smart for you to get caught with a corpse on your hands,” Melchett snapped. “There’s nothing more I can do here. I’m going home to bed, and God help the person who wakes me up for anything less serious than a typhoid epidemic.”
He stormed off into the night. His headlights flashed on and his car zoomed away.
“Speeding in a restricted zone,” Ottermole noted. “I better not write him a ticket, though. Guess I’ll go give Harry Goulson a buzz.”
“No,” said Thorkjeld Svenson. “Daylight.”
“The President’s right,” Shandy agreed. “We’d better leave her just as she is until we have daylight enough to examine the ground by. These lanterns can be deceptive, casting shadows and making you think you’ve seen something you haven’t. Or vice versa.”
“Okay. In the morning we look for gum wrappers and cigarette stubs the killer might have thrown away. Then we find out if he likes Camels and Juicy Fruit. So what do we do in the meantime?” Ottermole asked unhappily.
“I’m afraid we sit it out. Why don’t you send up a man to take your place here, Ottermole? You still have to notify Mr. Smuth, and the sooner the better. I’d go with you, if—”
“Go,” barked Svenson. He glanced around, selected a particularly rugged-looking oak tree, and settled his own massive bole against its trunk. “I’ll stay.”
“What about me?” inquired Bulfinch.
“You may as well go on and finish your rounds,” said Shandy. “Er—and make radio contact with the office at each checkpoint.”
“So they’ll know I haven’t skipped out on ’em, eh?”
“So they’ll know you haven’t been bopped over the head or garroted like Mrs. Smuth,” Shandy amended. “Since we have no idea how recently her body was parked here, we don’t know whether her killer might still be lurking on campus.”
“Gee, that’s right.” Bulfinch sounded more interested than alarmed. “We don’t, do we? Okay, Professor, I’ll keep calling in.”
“Do,” Svenson grunted. “Damn nuisance, breaking in new guards.”
Bulfinch trotted off. Ottermole turned to go. “I’ll rouse Budge Dorkin. He’ll think it’s a barrel of fun climbing out of a warm bed to come up here and baby-sit a stiff.”
“Blanket,” Svenson ordered. “Cover her up. Couldn’t stand the sight of her alive. Can’t stand it now.”
Shandy could only hope Chief Ottermole had got out of earshot before President Svenson finished that thought-provoking utterance.
Chapter Sixteen
“WHOEVER IT WAS, I’D like to shake his hand.”
The remark was not what one might normally have expected from a new-made widower. When Ruth Smuth’s husband said it, though, Peter Shandy found it reasonable enough.
Smuth probably wouldn’t have been quite so forthright if Ottermole hadn’t wakened him from a stupor that appeared
to have been induced by several stiff nightcaps. The man was still half-slopped, though he showed none of the usual symptoms of an habitual drunkard. He wasn’t tall, dark, and handsome, and he didn’t have a dimple in his chin. In fact, he didn’t look like anything in particular except the potato men Shandy’s late mother had carved sometimes for her young son’s amusement. He’d be fairly low down on somebody’s totem pole, no doubt; and probably hadn’t stood all that high with Ruth, despite the rather lavish house he’d provided for her.
Ottermole was clearly pleased to find somebody he could bully. “Oh yeah? Maybe you know the guy a damn sight better than you’re letting on. Where you been these past few hours?”
“On a goddamn plane from Detroit, that’s where. First we’re an hour late taking off. Then they serve a lousy dinner that’s supposed to be hot but isn’t. And the meat was all fat. I hate fat.”
Smuth brooded awhile on the faults of the airline, then went on with his jeremiad. “So I didn’t eat it and I’m sitting there starving to death, so the engine starts acting up again. So instead of flying direct to Boston they have to shuttle us in from Newark, so it’s another goddamn couple of hours. So I get into the parking garage and find out some jerk’s swiped the goddamn wheels off my car. So I call the airport cops and futz around there till they finish telling me how deeply they regret the unfortunate incident.”
Smuth paused to burp, but held up his hand as a signal that he hadn’t finished his tale of woe. “Then some guy offers me a lift, but it turns out he’s only going as far as Leominster. So it costs me another forty-seven bucks cab fare to get home. So I get in the house with my belly flapping against my backbone and I can’t find so much as a hunk of cheese and some crackers to chew on because my goddamn wife’s too goddamn busy with her civic service to shop for the goddamn groceries. I know what kind of service she’s been getting from Ol’ Dimplepuss, and you needn’t think I don’t.”
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