The Case of the Weird Sisters

by Charlotte Armstrong

  "You will have to tell me more about the Whitlock family." Duff said. "So, as soon as you're ready. . ."

  "Dear me, "Susan said, "the girls are not much younger than I am. Gertrude's fifty-five. And Isabel must be fifty-one herself. They were young women when I married their father. Or, rather, when their father married me. Stephen was never passive about anything."

  "What kind of young women?"

  "Oh, very elegant and cultivated. They'd been abroad. They are the only people in this town who have ever been to Europe. Fve been to Chicago. Stephen took me for a honeymoon."

  Duff smiled. "Cultivated? Educated?"

  "Well," Susan said, "girls didn't go to college in their day. But they had music lessons, and Gertrude used to paint china. They were . . . Well, if you understood a mining town . . ."

  "Tell me," said Duff.

  "Stephen was a rich man. He was like the Lord of the Manor. Don't laugh."

  "No," said Duff. "These small towns have industrial dynasties. His three daughters were princesses, eh?"

  "Oh, yes," Susan said. "Far too high up for the young men around here. There was only the young doctor, and sometimes visiting, royalty from other towns. They were spoiled, I suppose. It "wasn't their fault"

  "Stephen spoiled them?"

  "Well being so high and mighty in a little town like this. They weren't very attractive," Susan said, "not really. None of them were pretty. I sometimes think if they had had to try . . ."

  "For popularity?"

  "Well, for attention."

  "Bom to the spotlight, eh? Did you live with them long after your husband died?"

  "I didn't live with them at all. I moved away. You see, they didn't want me there. Heavens! Besides, I wouldn't have liked it I wasn't anybody, Mr. Duff. Stephen just took a fancy to me, and I fell in love. Sometimes I think that if I had stopped to think . . ." She sighed.

  "The girls were always hostile?"

  "Hostile?" She examined the word,

  "What word would you use?"

  "Condescending, perhaps," said Susan. ''Not that I blame them. I don't blame them a bit. Why, Mr. Duff, I was their mother's parlor maid. So how could I stay there and pretend to be Mrs. Whitlock when I was only Susan Innes, after Stephen was gone?"

  "You were very wise,'' said Duff "Your son didn't stay, either?"

  "Oh, no, Innes went off to the city. He was very bright, you know, and ambitious. He's done very well. Innes is a richer man than his father was. It seems strange to think of that, but I do believe he is. Of course, times were different. Innes hasn't got Stephen's .. . well... force. Innes is bright and clever, but Stephen dominated. You know?"

  "Go on," said Duff.

  "Innes is more Whitlock than Innes, just the same. The girls are his family. You see, he ..."

  "Condescends, too?"

  "Yes, he does," Susan said. "But it was all around him in the house when he was a little boy, and he couldn't help picking it up. I saw it happen. I don't mind, you know."

  "You don't, do you?" said Duff with some surprise.

  "No," said Susan. "I know exactly who I am and always was. It was just for a few years that Stephen rather forced me out of myself, to keep up with him. But there's no use pretending."

  Duff looked down at her placid face.

  "Have you been lonely?"

  "Why, no. I have a lot of friends," said Susan complacently, "and I like to read."

  "Innes never wanted you to come and live mth him?" Duff watched her.

  "My goodness, no. I'd make him very unhappy. Innes isn't easy with me, Mr. Duff. I don't know why. I try not to bother him."

  "I know why," said MacDougal Duff. "You're a very irritating woman. The trouble with you, you are thoroughly humble and good, and nothing is so infuriating as that."

  "Why, Mr. Duff!" said Susan. "Dear me, I never meant to be."

  "Furthermore, the Whitlocks never impressed you one bit. You're a freak, my dear Mrs. Innes. You were probably bom self-respecting, and you never got over it."

  "You're jollying me."

  Duff put his arm under hers and lifted her up the steps.

  "I shouldn't have told you," he said, "because it's too

  late to change now. You're set in your ways. Just the same, if you ever feel the need of your son's affection, be a little petty. A little mean. A little selfish." "How you talkl" said Susan.

  12

  Mr. Johnson let them in.

  Dr. Follett, coming downstairs a few minutes later, observed Susan's companion carefully out of the comer of his eye. He saw a tall man with a lined face, a man who looked, in an indefinable way, competent, self-possessed, and used to thought, even though his hazel eyes were now clouded over and he stood as if he were in a trance, gazing with dreamy intensity at Mr. Johnson.

  So lost was he in absorbed observation of that odd figure that Susan had to touch his arm to present him to the doctor. Duffs eyes awoke. The heavy lids changed shape. Dr. Follett felt with a shock the sudden power of Duff's concentrated attention.

  "Innes is asleep," the doctor said, siunmoning his smoothest professional manner to cover the shrinkage in his soul. "He is all right, Susan. Fortunately, the young people got to him in time. Another hour or two, and I shouldn't like to think about what might have happened."

  "At what time were you called, doctor?" Duff made it the casual question of a more or less interested stranger.

  "A little after two o'clock, sir." Dr. Follett could not imagine why he added that old-fashioned "sir."

  "Poor Innes. I won't wake him, of course," said Susan. "Are the girls in the dining room?"

  'They ain't up," said Mr. Johnson. He made a noise m his cheek as if he sucked a back tooth and walked away. His bulk moved silently down the hall to the dining-room door.

  "I don't believe they are about yet," the doctor said. "I haven't heard them. It's rather early. They had a bad night, you know."

  Mr. Johnson disappeared without having looked back, and Duff swung back to the doctor. "Where is Miss Brennan?"

  "Miss Brennan is asleep, too.''

  "Quite the enchanted castle, isn't it?" Duff said.

  Upon the sound of a car, the front door opened to admit two men, both of them yoiing. One, Duff saw, was dark and stocky and wore a chauffeur's uniform. The other was casually elegant in gray, a tall fair man with curly blond hair, good-looking, urbane. He presented himself to the company as one conscious of his own charm. But the sight of Duff surprised him.

  Fred counted faces and said quickly, "Who's with Mr. Whitlock?"

  "He's asleep."

  "Alone in the room?" Fred set down the suitcase he carried.

  The doctor said, "Why, yes, I. . ."

  "You shouldn't do that," Fred said severely and went upstairs fast.

  "Am I seeing things?" said the good-looking boy, "or do I see Professor Duff?"

  "You do," Duff said. "Killeen, isn't it? Five years ago."

  "The famous academic memory for names and faces," Art Killeen said. "How are you, sir? It's good to see you. What are you doing in these parts?"

  "Hunting the American Indian," said Duff pleasantly, and the blond boy laughed.

  "No doubt you people are wondering what on earth I'm doing here," Killeen said. "I happen to be Mr. Whitlock's lawyer. I had a wire yesterday asking me to come up. He's here, isn't he?"

  "Yes," said the doctor. "Yes, of course. But he had an unpleasant experience last night. I'm afraid he is asleep, Mr. Killeen, and I don't think he ought to be awakened."

  Curiosity shone in the lawyer's eyes, but he suppressed it. "Isn't Miss Brennan here, too?" Killeen turned to Duff. "You remember Alice Brennan?"

  "I do," said Duff. "I've come to see her myself. But this house is asleep. We must aU wait Meanwhile, doctor . . ."

  Susan said, "Have you had breakfast, Mr. Killeen? I'm sure Josephine can find you a cup of coffee. I don't think they'U mind." She carried him off to the dining room.

  The doctor looked uncertainly at Duf
f. He cleared his throat to make a remark, searching for a polite phrase.

  Duff said, his quiet voice asking for the truth, "What actually happened?"

  "I don't quite know," Dr. Follett said uncomfortably. "AH I know is that something went wrong with the heating arrangements, and a considerable amount of coal gas poured into Mr. Whitlock's room by way of his register. The house has a hot-air system. I suppose . . ."

  "Was it an accident?" No excitement or horrid speculation. Just a question.

  The doctor squirmed. "I don't know. Perhaps it was. I really couldn't say."

  "Has anyone been in the cellar?''

  "Oh, yes, yes . . ."

  "I'd like very much to see the cellar," Duff said.

  The doctor stiffened. "I'm afraid only the Misses Whitlock can give you permission, and they are not awake yet. Are you a heating expert, Mr. Duff?"

  "I am a detective," Duff said sweetly.

  "Oh." The doctor's eyes fell, came sharply back to Duff's face, and fell again.

  "I wonder"—Duff's voice was the voice of the tempter—"if I could find the cellar. Do you know where the stairs are?"

  The doctor turned his palms up. "I am in a very awkward position in this house, Mr. Duff. I am Mr. Whitlock's doctor, but I do not attend his sisters. Nor have, for many years. I'm afraid I can't help you."

  "I think perhaps you can help me," Duff said with his sudden appealing smile, "but not here and not now. Suppose I call on you in your office, sometime later?"

  "Very happy," said Dr. Follett with relief. "Good. Do that. I must get along. I have a call to make, and I must sleep, myself. But I shall expect you. Yes, thank you. Good-by."

  Dr. Follett went out. He was a man bursting with talk but muzzled, unable to say anything.

  Duff slipped his eye aroimd the hall, identified the exits and entrances, the two archways to the two front rooms, the bathroom door under the stairs, and the dining-room at right angles to it. Through this he went.

  Susan was chatting pleasantly with young Killeen.

  "Everybody's asleep except the chauffeur," Duff said. "I'd like very much to talk to him, Mrs. Innes."

  "Then I'll just go and sit with Innes myself," she said promptly and went briskly off.

  Killeen said, "She's Innes's mother, she says. Amazing. Pleasant old soul, though."

  "At least," said Duff gently. "Is Innes going to change his will?"

  "I don't know. Maybe so. What's going on up here? For instance, you're not looking for Indians," Killeen challenged with an air of shrewdness, "in this house."

  "I lead a double life," said Duff cheerfully. "Sometunes the two halves coincide."

  "I've heard what the other half of you double life is, lately. Well, well. . ." Killeen was being the old pal, on the inside track, man-to-man stuff.

  Duffs mild eye put him in his place. Art Kileen got ten years younger m as many seconds. "I suppose," he murmured to his coffee cup, "I had better just wait until Whitlock can see me."

  "Yes. Just wait," Duff said indulgently

  When Fred appeared it was with respectful attention a servant thoroughly in his place, and MacDougal Duff went gently to work to put him out of it.

  "Susan Innes recommends you," he said, when they were alone in the sitting room, having left Killeen to his coohng coffee. "So I thought, as long as the house is asleep, I'd like to talk to you."

  "You're a friend of Mrs. Innes?" Fred asked, a little more ready to relax.

  "I'm her paying guest, that's all," Duff said. "I happen to know Killeen. I also know Miss AHce Brennan."

  "I see," said Fred, who didn't.

  "They were both students of mine, m the same class, now that I remember. I used to teach, you see "

  Fred looked enlightened. "That wasn't in Chicago?"

  "No. In New York."

  Fred nodded.

  "I don't teach histoy anymore. I'm a detective. Anyhow, I have investigated various murder cases with some success. Yesterday morning at the railroad station, I saw Miss Brennan on the platform. She seemed to want to speak to me. That's why I'm here. I came to find out what it was she wanted to say."

  "Does she know you're a detective now?"

  "I don't know. What do you think?"

  "She probably does," Fred said.

  "Yes," Duff said, "I think so. Mrs. Innes has told me the sequence of events."

  "Some sequence. Since last night, I'm pretty sure."

  "Sure?"

  "Sure that somebody's trying to do in my boss," Fred said. "What can a detective do in a case hke that? Is trying to kill him a crime, even if they don't succeed?"

  "Certainly," said Duff, "but a very difficult one to prove."

  "Yeah," said Fred, "I dunno how you'd prove it."

  "As I've been able to gather from Mrs. Innes, the things that have happened might have been accidents."

  "Not what happened last night That's why I'm pretty

  sure now."

  "Could we go down cellar?" asked Duff softly.

  Fred grinned. "Why not? Tve been down there. I'd like to show you."

  "It's so awkward to explain to your hostesses that you think they're up to a litde murder and therefore you would like to see the cellar."

  Fred grinned wider. 'They're asleep, aren't they?"

  He led Duff through the kitchen, where Josephine looked around at them without protest, and down the cellar stairs. It was a shallow, old-fashioned cellar, with stone walls that hadn't been whitewashed for a long time. Duff had to duck constantly, for the roof was crisscrossed with a large number of fat pipes, branching out of the big furnace like the tentacles of a deformed octopus. There was a coal fire. Fred looked in at it briefly.

  "The fire was almost smodiered with fresh coal last night," he said, "and closed up tight Gas just pouring off."

  "Who tends the furnace?"

  "Mr. Johnson. The handyman around here."

  "Ah, yes. Mr. Johnson." Duff lingered over the name. "Does he drink?"

  "I don't know," said Fred, "but that's not the point

  Look. Every one of these pipes has a damper. Well, Innes got the full dose. The other rooms were like ice. Because somebody had carefully gone around down here and turned all the dampers shut but one. That wasn't any accident"

  Duff pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. He wandered among the pipes. "Which one goes to the room where Innes is?"

  "This one."

  "How do you know?"

  'They've got labels scratched on them. See. 'Papa's room.'"

  "Oh, yes."

  "You'd never know otherwise," Fred said. "Gee, it's some contraption." He stood, feet apart, gazing contemptuously at ihs, heating plant.

  "It more or less heats a house," Duff said mildly. "You are of the new era. Too bad we can't get fingerprints. But I suppose not."

  "Mine," Fred said. "Believe me, I had some fun scrambling around here trying to find all those cocks to turn."

  "That one is certainly rather well hidden," Duff said thoughtfully. "Where does it lead, do you know?"

  Fred looked at the scratches. "Kitchen."

  Duff thrust his hand between two of the enormous pipes.

  I'Look out," said Fred, "they may be pretty hot."

  "This one was turned, too? You're sure'?"

  "I'm sure," Fred said.

  Duff pulled his hand away. "Filthy,'' he said. "Can you tell me how a hand and arm could reach in there and not come back smudged?"

  "It comes back smudged," Fred said. "Greasy dirt. I got it on me."

  "Where?"

  "Where? On my arm."

  "Your forearm?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did anyone, last night, have any smudges on any forearms?"

  "No," said Fred. "Lord, I'd have been onto that. They were all in their nightclothes, and I took a look. But I don't know that it matters. They had plenty of time to wash."

  "I believe Miss Isabel Whitlock has only one arm?"

  "That's so."

  "Which?"
>
  "Her left one's the good one."

  "Do you want to put your left hand on there, or shall I?"

  "What's a little dirt on the hired help?" Fred said, grinning. He hauled up his sleeve, reached in, and touched the damper of the kitchen pipe. When he pulled his arm back there was a greasy smudge on it about six inches above the wrist, on the upper bone.

  "Did you try to get dirty? Don't try."

  "You can't help it," Fred said, "not if you go in all the way to the damper. Do it yourself. You simply can't help it."

  "I see," said Duff thoughtfully. "What's your name?"

  "Fred Bitoski. Call me Fred."

  "Fred," said Duff, "how does a woman with one working arm and hand wash her only forearm?"

  Fred stood still, turning his left hand on the wrist. "I don't know."

  "Soaks it, does she? Let's water run over it? Rubs it on a soapy rag that's fastened somehow?"

  Fred crooked his arm and twisted it. "She'd have to damn near stand on her head. That kind of dirt takes scrubbing, too. But it doesn't mean so much, Mr. Duff. She wears long sleeves. Even her nightgown. all the time."

  "Sleeves. Damned awkward to make a survey of the sleeves in this house."

  "I've got a lot of respect for detective work," Fred said earnestly, having quite forgotten he was hired help by this time. "But honestly, I don't see what you can do. You can't prove anything. You can't make them tell you anything, or let you look around, even. What can you do?"

  "As for proof, proof can wait," Duff murmured, "But I'd like to know. Wouldn't you?"

  "Sure, but how can you know, and what good would it do? All I can see is, keep the boss alive and get him out of here. Heck, all three of them coxild be in on it, one one time and one another."

  "Do you think they are working together? I take it we agree to suspect the Whitlock sisters."

  "Yeah, and it's one of them, or two or three." Fred shrugged. "They don't even have to be working together. Just working on the same idea, separately. It's so darned vague."

  "You interest me," said Duff. "Why should it occur to you that they're working at the same idea separately?"