Foggy, Foggy Death

by Frances Lockridge

  Scott Bromwell spoke slowly. For the most part he looked not at Heimrich, to whom he was speaking, but at the top of the table between them, perhaps at the cuff links lying on it. At first, Scott spoke as if, before each sentence, he thought the sentence through, carefully, so that in it he said precisely as much as he wished, and no more than he wished. His wariness was evident; a hundred times too evident, Karen thought, with coldness in her mind.

  It was true he had seen Bill Higgins; Higgins had come to his room. Scott was not sure when this had happened, but guessed it to have been something after one o’clock. It was at least half an hour before Scott, mixing a drink in the pantry, had been interrupted by Karen and Stephen Nickel with news of Higgins’s death. Scott abandoned his study of the table top—it had been almost as if he were reading from something there the words he was saying—and looked at Heimrich.

  “Which was the first I knew of it,” Scott said. “You understand I’m not admitting killing him—if he was killed.”

  “Go ahead,” Heimrich said. He had his eyes closed.

  “Higgins was in a dither,” Scott Bromwell said. “I thought he was in over his depth, and had found it out. He just opened my door and walked in, and closed it behind him and stood in front of it. He looked—scared, as much as anything.”

  Scott had said, “Well, what do you want?” or something to that effect. Higgins had said, “Look, Mr. Bromwell, you’ve got to help me out.” Then he had come farther into the room and stood with his back against a chest. It was then, Scott said, that he must have picked up the cuff links. Scott had not seen him do it, but he thought he remembered that Higgins had kept his hands behind him, as if bracing himself on the edge of the chest. He had repeated several times that Scott had to help him.

  “Had to?” Heimrich said, without opening his eyes. “As if he could make you?”

  Scott, who was again regarding the table top, or the cuff links on it, shook his head. That implication had not been in Bill Higgins’s words, or manner. “I told you,” Scott said, “he was more scared than anything else. Of you, chiefly.”

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “I’ve no doubt policemen frightened him. He probably thought we were going to pin the murder on him.”

  Scott Bromwell shook his head at that. He said that that had not come up; he didn’t know whether Higgins was afraid of that. He had gathered that he was afraid about the car. That, at any rate, was what he had talked about.

  “He wanted me to say I’d told him to take the car,” Scott said. “He said it wouldn’t matter to me; I had the car back. He said he hadn’t planned to steal it, merely to take a ride in it. Which, for all I know, may have been true.”

  “It may have been,” Heimrich said.

  “So,” Scott said, “he wanted me to fix it up for him. Say he had the car with my permission; even that I’d sent him on an errand in it. He kept on saying, over and over, that he hadn’t really meant to steal it, so I wouldn’t be lying; that the car was back, unharmed, and what good was it going to do me if he spent the rest of his life in jail? I said I was sorry, but I couldn’t. I said nobody would believe me if I did.”

  “Did you explain why you thought that, Mr. Bromwell?” Heimrich asked.

  “Because of the jewelry,” Scott said. “I said that it would be hard enough to make anybody believe I had loaned him the car, and that it would be idiotic to try to make anybody think I had loaned him the car plus all of Marta’s jewelry and a good part of—” And then Scott Bromwell stopped suddenly, although nobody had said anything and he did not appear to have been looking at Heimrich. But now Heimrich’s eyes were wide open.

  “Go on,” he said. “A good part of—whose? Your mother’s?”

  For a long moment Scott Bromwell merely looked at Heimrich, the muscle in his left eyelid jumping. Then, slowly, incongruously, he reddened as if he had just done something inordinately embarrassing.

  “Well,” Scott Bromwell said, then. “I guess I walked into that one, didn’t I, captain?”

  This time Heimrich nodded. “But,” he said, “finish with Higgins. If you want to tell it the same way—now.”

  “I do,” Scott said. “That’s the way it was. That’s what he came to ask. That’s undoubtedly how he got the cuff links. I let him talk for—oh, maybe five minutes, I tried to make him see how little chance there was of getting away with the story he wanted, even if I wanted to tell it. I let him think that, under other circumstances, I might have—and maybe I might at that. I didn’t persuade him, but after a while he gave it up and left.”

  “Just like that?” Heimrich said. “Didn’t—try to threaten you, or anything?”

  “No,” Scott said. “What could he threaten me with?”

  “Now Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said, and his eyes were closed and his voice was weary. “That cat’s out of the bag, isn’t it? I suggest he threatened to let it out. Probably say he’d seen you hide the Cadillac up the road. Which he might have figured we’d like to know.”

  “No,” Scott said, “he didn’t say anything about that. He didn’t try to get tough.”

  “Just left peacefully?” Heimrich’s tone was skeptical; intentionally skeptical. Scott flushed a little again.

  “That’s right,” he said. “He didn’t—pretend he knew anything. I don’t think he did.”

  “Now Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said. “The man’s dead. He got killed, remember?”

  “Not by me,” Scott said. “If he knew anything it was about someone else.” He looked at Heimrich now. “Anyway,” he said, “nobody can prove he got killed, can they? He popped into my room as if—as if somebody was after him. Probably he thought somebody was. Probably he thought you were. Suppose he found his way downstairs after he left me; heard something or saw something and opened the door to the storage room, thinking it was just an ordinary room to hide in. Went in suddenly, as he did into my room and—well, you can see what might have happened.”

  “Just an accident,” Heimrich said. “Now Mr. Bromwell. And Miss Mason’s lying?”

  Scott did not look at Karen. He looked at the table.

  “I don’t say that,” he said. “She could have been—mistaken. She could have—imagined it; been nervous and upset and—” He broke off.

  “Miss Mason?” Heimrich said.

  She hesitated momentarily. But it was no good that way; it was too late to make it that way.

  “I saw somebody with him,” she said. Her throat was stiff. “That was all I ever said. But that was true.”

  “I don’t know, then,” Scott Bromwell said. “All I know is, he didn’t threaten me. Didn’t claim to know anything that would—I suppose you mean, involve me in my wife’s death? But he couldn’t involve me. I didn’t kill her.”

  “You planned to,” Heimrich told him. “You as good as admitted that a moment ago. You recognized that—the one you walked into. You put the jewelry in the car. You admitted that, as you realized, when you said part of it was your mother’s. Because—you haven’t seen it since we picked it up, have you? It’s in a safe in White Plains.”

  “I put the jewelry there,” Scott said. “I—I did plan to meet Marta. But not to kill her.”

  “Now Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said. “Now Mr. Bromwell.”

  “Not to kill her,” Scott repeated. But he said it dully. Surely, Karen thought, Heimrich and Forniss would hear the uncertainty under the certain words. “Not to kill her. And, I didn’t, remember. I didn’t meet her. I didn’t kill her. I don’t know who did.”

  The plan, Heimrich said, had been Scott’s. A plan to murder. He spoke as if repeating the obvious. But then he opened his eyes.

  “If not to kill her, what?” he said. “An elaborate plan to get her alone, away from here. Why? To give her a present? Her own jewelry? And your mother’s? Now Mr. Bromwell.”

  “Actually,” Scott said, “most of it was mother’s, not hers. It was worth a good deal. She—she liked jewelry. Liked it in big, shiny piles.”

  �
�Do you expect me to believe—” Heimrich began, and ended with a sigh.

  “I don’t know,” Scott said. “I don’t know, captain. I was going to give her the jewelry, and the car, to go away. Go away for good. With anyone she liked. With Haas. And to leave the children here.”

  “Lorry too?”

  “Lorry too,” Scott said. “He’s—he feels like mine.”

  “And that was all?”

  Scott looked at him. He started to speak and hesitated. Heimrich waited.

  “That was all,” Scott Bromwell said.

  Karen felt as if she had been holding her breath; felt now as if she let it go. Perhaps she did. Heimrich looked at her; looked away again almost at once.

  “Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich said, “your mother—she was aware of this proposed—generosity on your part? With her possessions?”

  “I don’t—” Scott said. “Not so far as I know,” he ended.

  “She may have known? Or guessed?”

  Scott shrugged at that.

  “If you mean, was I stealing the jewelry from her,” he said, “she wouldn’t have felt it was that. Not—not if Marta really went. And, left us all alone.”

  “You didn’t ask her?”

  “I—” he said. “We’d talked about Marta, I’m afraid. In connection with Pethy, particularly. I knew mother’s attitude. Specifically—no, I didn’t tell her what I planned.”

  “She may have guessed?”

  “What difference does it make?” Scott said. “I didn’t meet Marta. Didn’t give her the jewelry. Didn’t—do anything to her.” He waited a moment. “What difference does any of it make?” he said. “Since it didn’t happen? Since nothing happened? And—what could Higgins have told you that could hurt me?”

  “That you had hidden the car. As part of a plan,” Heimrich said. “You thought we wouldn’t find out. You knew—anybody would have known, Mr. Bromwell—that if we did discover the plan, we’d suspect the planner. Even if, in the end, the plan wasn’t followed through. We’d still think the same man, with a different plan.”

  “And you do,” Scott said.

  Heimrich did not deny it.

  “On that basis,” Scott said, “the murder—if it was murder—of Higgins was futile, wasn’t it? Since you found out anyway? Futile—and foolish. Aside from everything else.”

  “Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “Naturally, Mr. Bromwell. But—murder always is. You see, Mr. Bromwell, murderers aren’t rational people. Particularly after the first time round. They—panic. I’m speaking of amateurs, naturally.”

  “Oh,” Scott Bromwell said, with bitterness, “naturally, captain.”

  “You see, Mr. Bromwell,” Heimrich continued, as if Scott had not spoken, “there isn’t always time to think things out. If there had been, Higgins probably would be alive now. What he had to tell wasn’t, if we’re right, of very great importance. It would merely have confirmed what we already guessed. But—it’s easy to realize that now, isn’t it? To realize killing him wasn’t necessary; was a mistake.”

  “Not mine,” Scott Bromwell said.

  “You admit making an elaborate plan to intercept your wife on her way home from Stamford,” Heimrich said. “You admit Higgins might have given us a point to work from, if, as you thought then, we hadn’t an inkling of the plan. You deny killing either of them. That’s where you stand now?”

  “Yes,” Scott Bromwell said.

  “A few hours ago,” Heimrich said, “after we found Higgins, you denied the plan to meet your wife? Until a few minutes ago, you denied seeing Higgins last night? That’s right?”

  “Yes,” Scott said.

  Heimrich waited a moment, as if for Scott to continue. But Scott Bromwell merely waited too.

  “Sergeant,” Heimrich said, “ask Mr. Haas to come in, will you?”

  Again they waited, silent. Scott Bromwell did not shift his gaze from the table top; did not look either at Heimrich or at Karen. He sat as if he were numb; as if, Karen thought, he didn’t care any longer. She wanted to go to him across the room, to tell him not to give up, but no longer to tread warily; to tell Heimrich what, in the dim light of her room, he had told her—about Pethy and Marta, about his own uncertainty as to what he might have done. It was bare as he told it now; bare and hard to believe. Only the truth would make it—

  The door opened and Rudolph Haas came in. He appeared to be confident and at ease; as always, one noticed his grooming almost before noticing the man. Haas was told to sit down, and sat down.

  “Mr. Haas,” Heimrich said, “did you expect Marta Bromwell to leave here with you last night? Not expecting to return?”

  Haas said, “What?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Did you expect her to have a Cadillac and jewelry of considerable value, given her by her husband? With the understanding that she go away with you.”

  Haas started to stand up and thought better of it. His tanned face flushed.

  “That’s a damn He,” he said. “Whoever says it.”

  “Captain—” Scott Bromwell began, but Heimrich shook his head.

  “Mr. Bromwell thought it possible,” Heimrich said.

  “Then Mr. Bromwell is crazy,” Haas said. “There was no question of—”

  There was no stopping Scott this time.

  “I didn’t say Haas knew about it,” he said. “Nobody knew about it except—except myself.”

  “You hadn’t, previously, hinted at some such plan to your wife?”

  “No.”

  “Who might have passed it on to Mr. Haas, here?”

  “I tell you—” Scott began, but Haas interrupted.

  “I do not understand this,” Haas said. “This talk of jewelry. Are you saying, Bromwell, that you planned to—to bribe your wife to go away with me?”

  Scott turned to face him.

  “I didn’t suppose,” he said, “that a hundred thousand or so in jewelry would have been a—an insurmountable drawback. I don’t think it would have been.”

  “You are—” Haas said, and now he was very red. But he stopped himself with what appeared to be an effort. “You are mistaken,” he said. “Also, you are a fool.”

  Scott shrugged to that.

  “Because,” Haas said, “Marta was already going away with me. And that, Mr. Bromwell, is why you killed her.”

  He put no special emphasis on the words. He spoke them as if they phrased a fact; a fact incontestable and obvious.

  Scott said nothing for almost a minute. Then, very slowly, he said, “You poor damn fool.”

  This time Haas’s movement carried him clear of his chair.

  “Sit down, Mr. Haas,” Heimrich said and, when Haas hesitated, said again, “Sit down.” The last time the invitation had become an order. Haas looked at him for a moment, and sat down.

  “Now Mr. Haas,” Heimrich said, then, “I’d like to get all this straight, naturally. You say Marta Bromwell was going away with you? Last night?”

  “That is right,” Haas said. “And somehow Mr. Bromwell found out and—”

  “Now Mr. Haas,” Heimrich said. “One thing at a time. You and Mrs. Bromwell had arranged this?”

  “Certainly, captain.”

  “Suppose,” Heimrich said, “you tell me just what was planned.”

  Haas, speaking carefully, phrasing his sentences with just perceptible formality, told what he said he and Marta had planned. The plans had been completed during the weekend. He was to leave, as he did leave, ostensibly to drive in to New York. But he was going only as far as Stamford, where he was to wait near the railroad station. Marta was to join him after she had put Karen Mason on the train. They planned to leave the small utility car she was to drive in a garage and go on in Haas’s car. They had planned to drive to Florida, where Haas had arranged an engagement for his orchestra.

  “Marta,” Haas said, “was to bring nothing—except herself. I am not a—a gigolo.”

  The word was odd to hear; a dead word, resurrected. Yet it conformed to the whole
tone of Haas’s speech. It was, Karen found herself thinking vaguely, as if he had learned English—all at once, completely, down to the last word of a vocabulary—fifteen years before, or twenty.

  “I waited until long after the time we had arranged,” Haas said. “Marta did not come. I was, of course, very disturbed and anxious. When I became convinced that something had miscarried, I decided to return here—to this house. Because of the fog, it took me some time. I arrived—and Marta had been killed. I realized that Mr. Bromwell must have—”

  “Never mind,” Heimrich said. “We understand what you thought, Mr. Haas.”

  “It was,” Haas said, “what anyone would have thought, I assume. It forms the classic pattern.”

  A good deal of the numbness seemed to have left Scott Bromwell. He almost smiled.

  “Operatic,” he said. “Thought you had a hot band, Haas.”

  “Mr. Bromwell,” Haas said, “not only did you kill your wife. You have no ear.”

  Then Scott laughed; the sound was harsh, but it was laughter.

  “Nice for you, captain,” he said. “I killed my wife because she wouldn’t go away with Haas. And because she was planning to. Any other reasons?”

  Heimrich closed his eyes.

  “Now Mr. Bromwell,” he said. “There’s always the best reason, naturally. Because you hated her.”

  There was a heavy pause.

  “I—” Scott said, and hesitated. “Not that much, captain,” he said. “Not even Marta that much.”

  Heimrich seemed to wait for him to go on; Haas looked hard at Scott Bromwell and Karen did not look, could not look, at him at all. But Scott did not go on.

  “Sergeant,” Heimrich said, “I think we’d better ask Mr. Nickel to come in for a moment.”

  Forniss went for Nickel, and again they waited. Scott Bromwell went back to his contemplation of the gold cuff links on the table between him and the solidity of Heimrich. Heimrich closed his eyes.

  Nickel came and looked around at all of them, and smiled. Whatever was in his smile, Karen thought, it was not amusement. Or, perhaps, in a way it was, but amusement unshared. Heimrich opened his eyes and told Nickel to sit down. Forniss pushed a chair in toward the circle; the chair was near Karen’s, halfway across the small room from that in which Rudolph Haas sat, now ignoring everyone, including Nickel.