by Kip Chase
‘They were the last persons to see her alive?’
‘Yep. Except for the killer.’
Carmichael ran a gnarled hand through his untidy white hair. ‘Damn’ mess’, he complained. ‘Seems logical robbery was the motive, woman killed, fifty thousand dollars missing. But we don’t know the cash was still there when she was killed. She might have moved it somewhere after the lawyer left. Checked on him, I suppose?’
‘Just on the surface, still more to do there,’ the chief replied, ‘but looks perfectly okay. Member of a reputable L.A. firm. Was the family lawyer before old man DeVoors died. And as for her putting the money somewhere else, we have gone over this room with a fine-toothed comb. Gone over the whole house, for that matter. Not a damn’ thing.’
‘I was wondering’, Pinkie ventured. ‘There seem to be a lot of points here where you have to sort of go on people’s word. The cook, the lawyer, everybody who said they didn’t know about the fifty thousand dollars … are you planning to make use of any type lie detector?’
The chief turned towards the young man.
‘I have considered it’, he said. ‘But it’s not one of those things we rush into. Have to collect enough material so the questions we ask will be significant enough to do us some good. But in a couple of days, maybe, it could be a good idea.’
‘You just talked to this Lewis on the phone, Louie?’ Carmichael interposed.
‘That’s right. He told me about the money, and about the will. Brother gets about three-quarters of it, rest goes to charities. One of the so-called “charities”, by the way, is some screw-ball outfit this Sra what’s-his-name belongs to.’ The chief snorted and continued, ‘Lewis is going to be at my office tomorrow morning at ten, by the way. Try and make it if you can. Now, anything else you want to see here?’
‘Yes’, said Carmichael. ‘I’d like to check on this window business.’
‘Oh, sure. If the door was locked, like the maid says, and if the murderer didn’t have a key—it’s a Yale lock, as you probably noticed—then we figure he came in this way.’ The chief strode over to the windows. ‘Come on over, I think we can lift your chair over the ledge here.’
The chief opened one of the windows with its screen, then helped Pinkie get Carmichael’s wheelchair out on to the covered balcony. They also got him through the only other window opening on to the balcony—that of the vacant bedroom. The room was modestly furnished. The dresser and table reflected a thin film of dust. There were three doors in the room. One, the chief indicated, was a closet; it was empty. One of the other doors led on to the landing.
‘The maid is supposed to dust in here once a week, but she didn’t get to it last week’, the chief explained. ‘We checked the lock on the landing door. Dust indicates it hasn’t been opened for a week or so. Now this door …’ he opened the third door which closeted the stairway, ‘has no lock. The door at the end of these stairs, which opens outside, is locked. But as I said, the key is kept over the door-jamb outside. It has been opened recently, but that don’t mean anything. One of the gardeners said he used the space at the bottom of the stairs to store a hose temporarily, just the day before the murder.’
‘Gardeners!’ exclaimed Carmichael. ‘Never thought of them. Somebody keeps this place looking like this. Where are they?’
‘Live at home’, the chief said promptly. ‘There are two regular gardeners, Japs, both of them. Work six days a week. And a third fellow helps out part time. There are quarters for them over the garage but they don’t care to live here. We checked them and they all have iron-clad alibis for Saturday night. Still checking, though.’
‘O.K.’, said Carmichael. ‘Let’s go back down.’
First to be called to account in the monstrous room downstairs was the elderly man with the piercing blue eyes. He was Augustus Veblen. Carmichael explained he had read the statements pertaining to the movements of the persons in the house on the night of the killing but now was seeking a more complete picture of the murdered woman herself, and her relationship with her guests.
Veblen spoke quietly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t be much help to you, Mr. Carmichael. It’s quite simple. I was an old friend of Mrs. DeVoors. I hadn’t seen her in a number of years, then ran into her again about six weeks ago. She invited me to stay here and continue with my work.’
‘Your work?’ questioned Carmichael.
‘Yes. I’m a writer.’ The old man spoke almost as if it were shameful to be a writer.
Carmichael nodded. ‘You say Mrs. DeVoors was an “old friend”. Just how long had you known her?’
‘We went to the same high school.’
Carmichael and the chief exchanged glances.
‘And what high school was that?’
‘Union High School in Buffalo, New York’, Veblen answered. ‘Surely you aren’t interested in events that long ago?’
‘We’re interested in everything to do with Mrs. DeVoors, Mr. Veblen’, Carmichael said. ‘Are we to understand you hadn’t seen her since high school?’
Veblen hesitated. ‘That’s right’, he said.
Carmichael pursed his lips and stroked his nose gently with forefinger and thumb. He turned to the rubicund Count Ivanov.
‘And you, sir. How long had you known Mrs. DeVoors?’
The Count was dressed in tight-fitting grey trousers with a Cossack-type shirt bunched together at the waist by a red sash. His large buttocks were prominently displayed under the ruff of the shirt. He had a broad Slavic face, except for a thin aristocratic nose. A red skull cap partially covered his scant reddish hair. He wore this odd costume with an air of authority. His slightly-accented voice was low and resonant, but inclined to squeak on the higher registers.
‘I met Mrs. DeVoors on April third, nineteen forty-three at a theatre party in New York’, he answered in measured tones. ‘I know the exact date because I met the lady who is now my wife at the same party. For that reason Mrs. DeVoors has always felt a special … ah … kinship for us. When she heard we were on the West Coast—that would be last April—she invited us to spend some time with her. We accepted despite several other invitations. She was a delightful and charming old lady.’
‘Some of the other reports we have had of the deceased do not confirm your opinion of her, Mister Ivanov’, Carmichael commented dryly.
The Count sniffed and shrugged his meaty shoulders.
‘I do not care for the opinions of domestics’, he said. ‘And if you please, sir, my title is Count.’
A smile twitched the corners of Carmichael’s mouth. ‘You were born in Russia, sir?’ he asked.
‘That is correct. My father was a member of the Emperor Nicolas’s personal household. I, myself, had the honour to fight for his Imperial Majesty though I was but a lad of fifteen at the time. Our family was forced to flee following the cowardly murder of the Imperial family. We stuck to our Emperor to the last.’
The Count’s flabby chest swelled as he spoke and Carmichael could swear that even the tightly encased buttocks assumed a more militant angle of protrusion. Carmichael nodded sympathetically. ‘You were very fortunate to have escaped’, he said.
The Count nodded. ‘We were indeed. Many of our friends …’ He gestured futilely with an eloquent hand.
‘Was Mrs. DeVoors’s husband with her in New York when you met?’ Carmichael continued.
The Count’s eyebrows expressed astonishment at the apparent irrelevance of the question. ‘Why, no, I don’t believe he was. She occasionally made the trip to New York herself during the season. She loved the theatre. She used to be an actress, you know. I don’t believe Mr. DeVoors went in for that sort of thing. He died the very next year, poor chap.’
‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t know Mrs. DeVoors had been on the stage’, Carmichael said.
The Count shrugged his shoulders, a gesture that seemed to be a habit with him. ‘Anyone here could have told you if you had asked’, he said carelessly. ‘She used to stage little productions here at the ho
use for her entertainment. She has a whole room full of theatrical things in the back.’
Carmichael turned inquiringly to Chief Delmar.
‘Didn’t mention that, Carmichael’, he said. ‘We did go through that room when we went over the house. Half a dozen trunks filled with all sorts of junk. Two of our boys pulled it all out. I saw some of it. Costumes, make-up kits, wigs, stuff like that, even a couple of suits of phoney armour. Didn’t think much about it, I guess.’
The old man in the wheelchair shifted his weight and turned to the dark young man who had been sitting quietly through the interrogations. ‘Now, Mr. Kuru, what can you contribute to this discussion?’
‘Perhaps nothing, perhaps a great deal’, the Indian answered.
The Count snorted audibly. Carmichael merely smiled. ‘And what am I to infer by that?’
Sra Kuru looked straight at Carmichael. ‘Count Ivanov is a disbeliever’, he said quietly. ‘He will say “stuff and nonsense” to what I am about to tell you. It does not matter to me what you believe, but there is no reason for me not to tell you my theory.’
‘And what is that, sir?’
‘I do not believe Mrs. DeVoors was murdered. I believe she left us voluntarily.’
The chief started. ‘What the devil, Kuru’, he barked. ‘You never mentioned this to me.’
Kuru turned to the chief. ‘You never asked me what I thought,’ he said calmly, ‘only where I was and what I was doing at such and such a time. And I told you. Mr. Carmichael asked me what I could contribute. It was an honest question and I gave him an honest answer.’
The chief gave the little Indian a sour look.
‘And what leads you to this remarkable conclusion?’ Carmichael asked.
The Indian flashed him a white smile. ‘Remarkable only because your conception of moral values is perhaps, ah … clouded, sir. Mrs. DeVoors was a woman of remarkable spiritual stature.’
The chief muttered something under his breath.
Kuru continued, ignoring the chief but speaking directly to Carmichael. ‘She was an avid student of Yoga, even as I myself am in a most modest capacity. I believe,’ he said solemnly, ‘Mrs. DeVoors has reached the seventh plateau.’
Carmichael squinted at the small man. Do I understand, sir, you think the lady willed herself to death?’ There was more than a hint of incredulity in his voice.
Kuru smiled pityingly. ‘That, I suppose, would be one way of putting it. A misleading way, of course. Mrs. DeVoors is not dead, she has simply passed over to that higher plane which we are all, consciously or not, seeking. A state which …’
‘But the tie, man, the tie’, Carmichael interrupted irritably. ‘You mean to have us believe Mrs. DeVoors put the tie round her own neck, then strangled herself to death?’
The Indian sighed. ‘Please, sir, not death. And as I have already pointed out, it is of no concern to me what you believe. As for the tie …’ he shrugged, ‘perhaps she used it as a symbolic substitute for our Lord Aapep, who is sometimes conceived as a snake, or in snake-like form. Perhaps someone else, for obscure purposes of their own, placed the tie round Mrs. DeVoors’s neck after she had already made her bodily departure. It is not for me to say. But this I can say. I had been in close mental communion with Mrs. DeVoors for several months prior to her leaving us. I have had the unmistakable feeling this past week she was very close to the consummation of our efforts. Closer, I am sorry to say, than I am. I have no doubt she stepped over the unfathomable threshold the night you say she “died”. And now, gentlemen, if you have no more need for me, I ask that I may be excused. It is the hour of my meditation.’
Carmichael waved his arm in dismissal. Pinkie was openly gaping as the little man marched from the room.
‘Southern California’s a-crawl with them’, was Chief Delmar’s only comment.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘WELL?’ queried Chief Delmar. He, Pinkie and Carmichael were lunching in the squad car. With apologies to Carmichael for not giving him a ‘decent lunch’, the chief had pulled over to a hamburger drive-in on the way back to the station from the DeVoors’s. They had engaged in desultory small talk while the two older men downed their hamburger and coffee. Now, as Pinkie started methodically crunching his way through his second double cheeseburger, the chief had turned to Carmichael.
The old gentleman carefully balanced his empty coffee cup on the metal tray hooked ingeniously on to the car window. He sighed and slumped down.
‘You got a dandy, Louie’, he said at last.
The chief acknowledged this pessimistic beginning with a grunt.
‘This is the way it looks to me’, Carmichael continued. ‘For the time being we have to assume robbery was the motive. It’s the only concrete thing we’ve got. All right. The killer enters the room, we’re not sure how, but no great problem there, and opens the old lady’s desk. She wakes up, starts to raise a rumpus. He or she throttles her with the tie, takes the cash and leaves. So where does that leave us?’ Carmichael slumped even further in the seat.
‘Two things to go on’, he went on, answering his own question. ‘One, who knew about the money being there? And two, who would have a tie belonging to Jack Newton? As for the money, so far the only people who have admitted knowing the money was there are Elinor Wycliff and that lawyer—what’s his name?’
‘Roger Lewis’, the chief supplied.
‘Yes, Lewis. And I gather from what you’ve said he doesn’t fit the pattern. Fifty thousand dollars isn’t worth a murder to a successful man like that. Unless, of course, he’s in some sort of trouble. More checking, always that damn’ leg-work. So for the moment that leaves us Miss Wycliff. How long had she been with Mrs. DeVoors?’
‘About two years’, the chief said. ‘You figure her as the most likely candidate?’
‘About two years …’ mused Carmichael. ‘Well, of all those involved I would say it was more likely she than any one of the others. But I also figure it’s more likely someone else than it is she. Am I confusing you?’
‘Slightly.’
‘What I mean is, right now the two most logical are the lawyer and Miss Wycliff. And of those two it seems more probable a girl who has to earn her living as a secretary to a cantankerous old lady would be more in need of fifty thousand dollars than a successful lawyer. So she is the single most probable suspect. But if the secretary is the thief type she surely has had other opportunities during two years to get away with some cash. The lawyer said Mrs. DeVoors had had a good deal of money lying around before. Which is why I say it’s more likely it was a third party, one of the guests or a servant or an outsider who had been tipped off. This brings us back to the tie. Just what did Newton have to say about it?’
‘He says he noticed the tie was missing about three weeks ago’, the chief said. ‘He thinks he may have worn it to a swimming party at the DeVoors house, then accidentally left it there. But he’s not sure.’
‘That figures’, Carmichael muttered. ‘Had to be some logical way for the killer to get a hold of it. But that pre-supposes the murderer planned this crime some time ago, which doesn’t jibe.’
‘But,’ the chief protested, ‘the tie might have been just lying around in some obvious place and the killer got it just before going into the bedroom.’
Carmichael nodded. ‘Right you are. Something else to check. However, it would appear whoever wanted to kill Mrs. DeVoors deliberately wanted to implicate the doctor. So far, we don’t know anybody who had it in for him. If the murderer wanted just something to strangle with, almost anything else would have done, a sash, a piece of clothesline. Or if he merely wanted to throw suspicion elsewhere, one of the other guests’ belongings probably would have been easier to get a hold of. A tie of the Count’s, for example.’
‘Don’t think the Count wears ties, just those Rooshin shirts’, Chief Delmar grinned.
‘Well, a belt then’, snapped Carmichael. ‘You know what I mean. What do you make of it, boy?’ he asked, suddenly turning to his
grandson. Pinkie hastily masticated and swallowed the last morsel of cheeseburger.
‘One thing,’ he said, shaking his blond head, ‘sort of surprises me. The way you guys go about it.’
‘For example?’ Carmichael’s voice was cutting.
‘Well, I suppose I expected a more scientific approach. Like, well … analysis of the suspect’s shoes to see who had been in the bedroom recently …’
‘Hmm-mmf, dust analysis’, said Carmichael. ‘Trouble is, dust has to be of a special nature to be positively identified with a particular locale. On occasion it can be pinned down to a house, but never a room, unless the room has particular uses or qualities about it. Not practical here. But that’s all right, you’ll learn … Now that tie,’ he mumbled, ‘figures to be someone who didn’t like the doctor.’
‘If the doctor didn’t do her in himself’, the chief reminded him.
‘If, if, if’, grumbled Carmichael. ‘Always an “if”. But keep plugging and there’s always a break. Well, almost always’, he amended.
‘Any suggestions, Carmichael?’ the chief asked, after a moment’s silence.
‘Looks to me like you’re doing fine, Louie. As I keep saying, keep probing.’
Chief Delmar nodded. He picked up the hand mike on the police radio, depressed the side button and barked, ‘Seventy-four to station.’
With remarkably little distortion the speaker responded, ‘Ten-four, seventy-four. Over.’
‘I’m ten-nineteen’, the chief said. ‘That’s all.’
‘O.K.,’ came the answer, ‘there’s someone here waiting for you.’
‘Who?’
‘Some girl. Won’t give her name. A real doll.’
‘All right, Parker’, the chief responded curtly. ‘Tell her I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ He turned to Carmichael apologetically. ‘Parker’s a new man. Needs to be straightened out on radio procedure.’
