The Laughing Man
Page 18
“And you arranged with the Rubinows for a false kidnapping which was to be a murder. Then you planted part of the ransom money on Captain Ralston.”
“It was a flawless operation until the Rubinows turned faint-hearted. The timing was exquisite. I arranged for a rigged poker game to be played for Ralston’s benefit. The marked money was eventually traced to him, as I knew it would be. He could never explain how an unemployed man living in a furnished room could be in possession of that much money, won in a poker game whose participants had long since disappeared. He tried to tell the police, but of course they didn’t believe him. I had the satisfaction of knowing he died with the knowledge that I had arranged it all.”
“And then broke your wife’s mind.”
“Hardly difficult with her massive guilt.”
“Later, when a child’s body was discovered near the estate, you identified it as yours?”
“‘Yours’ is a poor choice of words, Lieutenant. However, I honestly thought it was the child who had been masquerading as mine. It wore your clothing, and although badly decomposed, it had a large skull fracture. For thirty years I thought you were dead. Dead like your father.”
“Harry Rubinow must have been the one who told you I was still alive. Why? Blackmail or fear?”
“Both. When his call came through, it took me a moment or two to even recognize his name. Then, he kept repeating over and over again that ‘the child is alive, the child is alive, and Mary’s going to tell him everything.’ I didn’t even know who Mary Maston was until we made some discreet inquiries.”
“Once my mother—I mean Mary—was convinced she was dying, she told Martha Rubinow that she was going to tell me everything. But still, it had been over thirty years. Why did Harry panic?”
“There’s no statute of limitations on a capital crime. That worried the little janitor. Like many people, he put his own motivations into others. Since I had never disavowed the child—you—there was a possible claim against my eventual estate. Mr. Rubinow intended to collect handsomely from me by removing that possibility. He’d done well financially, but, for some, there’s never enough.”
“Then Martha Rubinow killed my mother.” Brian still found himself unable not to use the term.
“No. The Rubinows, for the second time, were not able to follow instructions. An indiscretion they eventually paid for. Buxton made the necessary contact.”
The room seemed to partially dissolve around Brian. All that he could see through tunnel vision was the impassive ex-Colonel recounting events and conspiracies that he had used so easily to destroy so many. He felt the palm of his hand perspire as he gripped the weapon. For the second time, he wanted to kill this diminutive monster before him.
The panorama of the thirty-year-old plot was now clear. A young Harry Rubinow, “in service” to Wright, had no doubt been as rapacious then as he was later in life. The offer of so much money had been far too tempting. Initially, Martha had probably rebelled against the plan, and to satisfy her qualms Harry had devised the switch of a dead child for the live one. Lockwood’s job in the cemetery had been convenient for them. His uncle’s near-childish naiveté had allowed the Rubinows to manipulate the gentle man.
Lockwood took the child to his sister with a disjointed but transparent story. Mary would have pieced the events together and accosted Martha. Her friend had told her of the unhappiness in the Wright home, and Mary had made the decision to save her brother from imprisonment and possible execution. She had sacrificed her engagement to Wilton Henry, as he would have demanded too many answers about where the child came from. She had raised Brian as her own, creating a weave of falsehood to protect him and the others. When Mary became ill and wanted to tell the truth, Harry was torn between panic and greed. The tangle of destruction had begun again.
The words were difficult, nearly impossible to mouth. “If Martha didn’t … who killed my … my mother?”
“Martha wouldn’t perform the feat. However, Mrs. Wholly was most accommodating.”
“That’s a lie!” Jan yelled.
“Do not diminish your accomplishments, Mrs. Wholly. Your performance has been excellent.”
She turned to Brian. “She only had a few days. She could have gone any time … she was in pain. She welcomed it.”
“Sit down,” Brian said.
“You will find it a good rule, Lieutenant, to know that when you have people doing unsavory things for you, that the more contaminated they become, the more reliable they are.”
“They forced me,” Jan said.
“Oh, come, come, my dear. You are remarkably adept. Pillow over the face, wasn’t it?” He pushed himself erect with the cane and opened another drawer.
Brian followed him with the gun. “Watch it.”
“Money.” He held a bound stack of bills and tossed it across the room to the floor near Jan’s feet. “Pick it up, my dear. It’s yours. The final payment Buxton would have delivered, eventually, had he been able.”
Jan looked at the currency by her shoes and then slowly pulled it to her. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“I like good breeding,” Colonel Wright said. “I am afraid this whimsical tale we’ve spun will come to naught. It’s highly doubtful that Mrs. Wholly will discuss the matter with anyone beyond this room. Isn’t that true, Mrs. Wholly?”
“We can go away, Brian. We both have enough money so we can go somewhere and he can never find us.” She ran her fingers along his cheek. Brian continued staring at the Colonel. “It’s over now. You’ve proven what you wanted. We can leave—here, Tallman, the country.”
“Now that Brian has satisfied his identity crisis, I think the whole matter is closed. If you two will be kind enough to go.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Brian said.
“I think not. You may have done something to Buxton, but I am sure it was under entirely different circumstances. You won’t kill me, Brian. For the same reasons you deserted, you won’t shoot me. I would shoot you, but you’re a coward. No fruit of my loins, no seed from the Bellchamp line. No, you are the offspring of a weak officer and a woman who now babbles hopelessly in the mountains. Now, get out! Out before I call the police and have you arrested for trespass.”
Brian aligned the pistol sights directly on Colonel Wright’s forehead. The old man looked at him with cold eyes as Brian’s finger tightened on the trigger.
He couldn’t fire.
He glanced at Jan hovering by his side. “Do you still want to go with me?”
“Yes. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll do anything you want.”
He handed her the gun. “It doesn’t make much noise. Give me two minutes to get out of the house and around the corner. Then kill him. Understand? Kill him.”
She nodded and took the weapon.
Brian hurriedly left the room and the house, leaving the front door open. He ran down the block toward the nondescript car containing the two bulky detectives. As he approached them, they glanced at each other quizzically and opened the car door.
“She’s going to kill him,” he shouted. “For God’s sake, hurry! She’s in there with a gun.”
The detectives fumbled for holstered pistols as they sprinted toward the open door. Brian followed them into the study.
The body lay sprawled across the carpet near the chair, its neck bent awkwardly to one side. Eyes stared unseeingly at a bundle of currency a foot away from the dead face.
“Whore! Slut! Rotten bitch!” The cane lashed out again over the lifeless body. The old man held the cane with both hands as he bent over Jan’s corpse. Spittle drooled from the corner of his mouth as his face contorted in rage, and the cane struck again. “You gave yourself to him. To the man who ruined me! You opened your legs to him. Die. Die!”
Brian realized what had happened. When he ran from the house and left her with the gun, Jan had squeezed the trigger again and again, but the hammer fell on empty chambers. She had tried to fire until the cane lashed out.
&n
bsp; “He’s broken her goddamned neck,” a detective said.
The second plainclothes man stepped toward the Colonel and caught the handle of the swinging cane. “All right, old-timer. You’ve done it. She’s dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
Clinton Robinson was in a happy mood as he floored the accelerator to careen around a curve.
“What a mess,” he chortled as the car rocked back to stability. “First, of course, there are the charges against you, which we’ll fight tooth and nail. Let’s see, they’ll probably hit you first with killing Buxton.”
“That was self-defense,” Brian said, as he shifted his arm to a more comfortable position in the sling.
“True. And the weapon you took from him has been identified as the gun that killed the Rubinows. However, certain people think you were a little overzealous in burying him afterward.”
“What do you think they’ll do to the Colonel?”
“At last report, during the commitment hearing he was giving orders to nonexistent troops. I can’t imagine he will ever stand trial, nor will he ever leave the hospital. Which raises another forty or fifty million problems that will make a lovely case. In fact, we might even make law over that one.”
“The Wright money?”
“They’ve appointed a temporary conservator for both the Colonel and Mrs. Wright, but we’ll petition the court on your behalf. After all, you are the legal issue of Mrs. Wright.” He chortled again. “The legal fees will be astronomical.”
“I had the feeling they might be.”
“I believe I’ll have to give up the rest of my practice to devote full time to your affairs.”
“Do you think the Colonel caused his wife’s break-down?”
“You met the gentleman. What do you think?”
“I think he’d drive a saint mad.”
“It didn’t leave Mary much choice, did it? In addition to protecting Lockwood, she also rescued the child from an intolerable situation that she had seen firsthand.”
“I still think of … of me in the third person, as ‘the child.’ It’s going to take a long time to assimilate.”
“The dreams?”
“Gone. You know, Clinton, they caught Ralston with the money that was marked, but the Rubinows and Mary had most of the money and were able to feed it into the economy.”
“Years later. As nearly as I can detect from Mary’s financial records, they waited almost ten years before unloading any of it.”
“A bit at a time.”
“When they felt safe. Matter of fact, I don’t believe Mary ever spent any of Lockwood’s share, but invested all of it.” The car skidded to a halt and rocked back and forth on the shocks. “We’re here. Want me to wait?”
“I’ll catch a bus back.” Moving painfully, his side bandaged, Brian got out of the car and walked over to the driver’s side to lean in the window. “Ah, Clinton, I want to thank you for all your help, but let me ask you one question.”
“Hurry up. The clock’s running, and I’m probably the most expensive chauffeur you’ll ever hire.”
“Was it all for the money—your fees?”
Clinton reached abruptly for the car ignition and switched it on, before turning to Brian with the faintest trace of a smile. “Good God, boy, it beats blowing up toy boats in lakes.”
Brian watched the car as it spun from the parking lot and turned south toward Tallman. Then he headed for the meadow.
He knew she would be in the high meadow gathering a bouquet for the table. As he walked toward her, he saw a light breeze ruffle her hair as she stooped to pick a wildflower.
He wanted to hold her, but that would take time. Months or years, there would be a way and he would find it.
As Brian Maston approached the woman on the hill, she turned toward him with a smile and offered him a flower.
About the Author
Richard Forrest (1932–2005) was an American mystery author. Born in New Jersey, he served in the US Army, wrote plays, and sold insurance before he began writing mystery fiction. His debut, Who Killed Mr. Garland’s Mistress (1974), was an Edgar Award finalist. He remains best known for his ten novels starring Lyon and Bea Wentworth, a husband-and-wife sleuthing team introduced in A Child’s Garden of Death (1975).
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1980 by Stockton Woods
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3798-3
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