“If I had known that,” she said, “you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m sure it’s a painful subject,” he said, “but I urgently need to know something about the man. It is literally a matter of life and death, and anything you say will be kept in complete confidence.”
“I’m a lousy chooser when it comes to husbands,” she said. “But Howie was the bottom. He makes the others look good. What did you want to know?”
“What makes Howie tick?” he said. “Where does his money come from? The way I figure it he should have been broke years ago. Most of the things he’s interested in are sick.”
“That’s the old Gadwell touch,” she said. “Big, big talk, sad performance. But I don’t see why I should talk to you about Howard. I want to forget him.”
“I guess he didn’t treat you very well,” Sidney said. “But I am representing a young guy whose life has been ruined by Gadwell, and I can’t find out why. And unless I do find out, this lad is going to be in very bad shape indeed. You can help him if you’ll talk to me.”
“Just what do you mean by bad shape?” she asked.
“He’ll be locked away for life in a mental institution,” Sidney said.
She crushed out a cigarette, took a fresh one from a lacquered Chinese box and lit it.
“I thought I might come to that myself once,” she said. “Would it really help this boy if I stuck my neck out and told you about Howard?”
“It most probably would,” he said, “but you won’t be sticking your neck out.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” she said. “Howie can be nasty and vindictive. A really ugly customer. But—oh hell. Anyway, I was once married to Howie, as you know. We had a smashing new house up near Otter Loop, by Lawrence and Avenue Road. There was a picture story about it in Chatelaine. A singer’s marriage and career piece. I traveled a lot and kept odd hours, and I kidded myself that I had all the answers. Until some new questions came along.”
“What sort of questions?” Sidney asked.
“Weekends. Howard went away every weekend. Fishing or hunting or something, with some friends. Vague friends. Where did he go? Oh, different places. Bobcaygeon, Galt, Ste. Adèle. Well, little Sharon dreaded those stories in the paper about a rift in the happy marriage, so she did a little quiet detective work, hoping to get rid of her rising jealousy.”
“Detective work, eh?” Sidney said. “How did you go about it?”
“The speedometer,” she said. “Take the mileage off his big station wagon on Friday evening, check it again Sunday night or Monday morning. Interesting. Mileage always the same, near as makes no matter. Never less than two hundred and eighty-four, never more than three twenty. Usually two ninety odd. So I figured all these weekends were spent at the same place. But where? So I did more detective work. When his gasoline bills came, I steamed them open with the teakettle and checked the gas receipts. Any gas bought on those weekends was bought on Highway 400 or Highway 11. And the farthest north point of purchase was Bracebridge. Also, if ever he bought gas on Saturday or Sunday, he bought it in Bracebridge. So…”
“So, his hideaway was in the Bracebridge area,” Sidney said. “Miss Willison, you would make a formidable detective.”
She smiled wanly. “If that ever got out, I’d never get another husband,” she said. “But anyway I was curious about these weekends, naturally, because they went on winter and summer. And then I did a Bluebeard’s wife. I peeked into the forbidden cupboard.”
“He had one of those, did he?”
“Yes,” she said. “In the basement recreation room. Yale lock. Mustn’t touch. Secret business papers. So one Saturday I called in a locksmith and got him to open it and give me a key. And what did I find? Films. In cans. Sixteen millimeter and eight millimeter. And boxes of stills. Mr. Grant, they were the sort of pictures which nasty, elderly men or naughty schoolboys leer over. I borrowed a projector and ran off a film. I couldn’t describe it.”
“Blue cinema?” Sidney said.
“I think that’s what it’s called. The kind of films that men show at stag parties, I believe. Well, in this film a burglar breaks into a house and finds a woman all alone. He holds a knife to her throat and—well, it was all very frank and revealing. In the end, she is so pleased with his attentions that she calls for an encore, which is shown in clinical detail.
“Well, I was just sick. Now you may believe what you like, but I played several films. Some of them in color, and there were outdoor sequences. White pine trees, rocks and girls. Typical Muskoka scenery. The indoor shots were all in rooms with high ceilings, and there was a large entrance hall with a curving staircase. I could only conclude that they were taken in one of those big, old cottages on Lake Muskoka and that Howard was spending his weekends making them. You see, he is a clever technician and knows something about films and sound equipment.”
“A pretty dangerous business,” Sidney said.
“Oh, long stretches in the penitentiary for anyone that gets caught having any connection with that sort of business. The police sort of keep an eye on film producers and photographers. When I was younger I was always being invited to do artistic poses for some photographer—in the evening somewhere. Well, I had the goods on Howie, but I was scared. Like Bluebeard’s wife. I took the projector back, and then I packed up everything I owned and moved right out. I stayed in New York. I was scared stiff. But Howard followed me. He caught up with me at the St. Regis. He wanted to know why I had left him. I told him some lies, but he knew. You see, he had some photographic device in that cupboard which told him that it had been opened, and finally he accused me point-blank. So I admitted that I knew. And honestly, his face terrified me.
“He said that making those films brought him in a nice, steady income, and not another soul in Canada knew anything about it. I think he borrowed or bought old equipment from this commercial film outfit he was connected with and took it up north on the weekends, and then the finished products were smuggled into the States.
“Well, Howard said that his business associates were certain American gents who didn’t fool. He said that if ever I opened my mouth, it would never be safe for me to cross the border again. He said they would get me in Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, New York or Los Angeles. He asked me if I knew how acid affected a person’s complexion. He said maybe I should talk to Victor Riesel. He said he had taken the precaution of moving all that stuff away from the house, and nobody would ever find it.
“Finally I agreed to divorce him and not ask for any settlement, and I swore I would never tell a soul, so he let me go. And now I’ve told you. So now you know where Howard got his spending money.”
“I can see the pattern,” Sidney said. “I came across a case where Gadwell wanted to distract somebody’s attention so he arranged an accidental-on-purpose striptease. The man is trying to build sex as a spectator sport.”
There were many other questions, but they brought forth nothing of positive value. On the negative side, Miss Willison knew of no connection between Gadwell and Ralph Paget.
Had Wes Beattie somehow stumbled on Gadwell’s secret, through attending a stag party or paddling about in Muskoka? A possible new motive had appeared.
***
After leaving Miss Willison’s apartment, Sidney called Bob Duffy and warned him that he might receive some sort of threat, and then called June to caution her against revealing the name “Gadwell” to her brother if she should succeed in seeing him. Then he headed for St. Clair Avenue and caught Dr. Milton Heber just as the psychiatrist was leaving his office.
“Mr. Grant!” Heber said. “The young lawyer who, as I recall it, undertook to get in touch with a certain woman witness. How did you make out?”
“Dr. Heber,” Sidney said, “I have news for you. The weird world of Wes Beattie is even weirder than you thought. There is actually some substance to it. Wes was framed on the purse theft. I’m convinced of it.”
“Splendid!” Heber said. “And it was very
wise of you to come for immediate psychotherapy. Would you like to be admitted to the Psychiatric, or would you prefer Homewood?”
“Sorry, no dice,” Sidney said. “Now, Baldwin Ogilvy tells me you have proof that Wes’s murder-night alibi is all lies. I would like to see your proof. By the way, Ogilvy said…”
“Yes, he called me and asked me to let you have anything you wanted. Well, it’s very simple. I persuaded Wes—much against his will—to take heavy sedation. Sodium pentothal. So-called truth serum. He wanted to know why, and what did I intend to ask him under the truth serum. He was frightened of it. He obviously had guilty secrets he was afraid of spilling.”
“Who hasn’t?” Sidney asked.
“Oh, agreed, absolutely. But an innocent person charged with a crime is more likely to welcome any form of truth serum or polygraph test. However, after some days of persuasion, Wes agreed. And I was able to put on tape an interview in which Wes went right through his alibi story in meticulous detail. And, unlike his wild and improbable stories of the conspiracy, this was as skillful a piece of lying as I have ever heard. And psychiatrists hear plenty.”
“You mean it’s possible to lie under this truth serum?” Sidney asked.
“Yes. That’s why ‘truth serum’ is a misnomer. What Wes did, I believe, was to rehearse and rehearse his story until he had it taped, and all the rough edges rubbed off. It’s possible that he actually believed every word of it himself. Under certain circumstances I believe that a person with delusions could fool the polygraph lie detector.”
“Then, if this was such skillful lying, how do you know it was lying?” Sidney demanded.
“Well, externally, for a start, we know that on that evening Wes Beattie left his fingerprints on a telephone at his uncle’s apartment. This has been proved quite objectively. His movements in the preceding days have been checked out most carefully, and the only time those fingerprints could have been put there was on that evening. His alibi for all other times is only too well substantiated.”
“Yes. But that is begging the question to the point where you are petitio princi—pie-eyed,” Sidney said. “What about internal evidence?”
“Even better,” Heber said. “Wes nerved himself to face the ordeal by pentothal, and he was clever about it, but not clever enough. He knew he would be asked to describe the apartment to which he claimed he had been lured. He knew he had to have details. So he formed a mental picture of an apartment. He furnished it in his mind until he could string off all sorts of things—pictures on the walls, books, records and such like. On this background he superimposed a story about being lured away by a girl, with whom he had an affair—also described in quite astounding detail.
“But here’s the catch. Wes has never known any sort of house or apartment that didn’t have good pictures, carpets and objets d’art. He put together the sort of apartment where you might conceivably make love to a lady of considerable taste, assuming that her taste could descend to Wes in the matter of men. But the girl. You should hear her. I have no doubt she is a real girl, with whom Wes at some time has had a sordid affair. She was obviously raised on bubble gum and movie fan mags and comic books. Her vocabulary is revealing. She says, if I recall correctly, ‘Honey boy, I know that God intended you and I for lovers.’ Wow! If the girl is real—and I believe she is—Wes probably knew her at a cheap hotel. She absolutely does not fit the background he has given her. She could not possibly live in the apartment that Wes furnished for her.
“The girl talks like an uneducated waitress in a cheap restaurant. Yet she has a Modigliani in her dining room, a Renoir in her bedroom, a modern abstract in her living room, books by Ivy Compton-Burnett, Proust and Agatha Christie, a hi-fi with no rock, cha cha or cowboy guitars—only Haydn, Stravinsky and Broadway musicals. Wes allowed himself to get very drowsy, but he kept enough grip to recite these things in a very convincing manner. Now, what can you make of that —coupled with those fingerprints? There is a sort of insane cunning in it, even allowing for the fatal error.”
“May I have the tape?” Sidney asked.
“Certainly. If you haven’t got a machine, you can rent one on Yonge Street. But beware of being sucked into the weird world of Wes Beattie, or you’ll find yourself occupying the next bed at the Psychiatric.”
Sidney took the tape recording and went home, feeling somewhat depressed. He toyed with the theory that the technically clever Gadwell had, in fact, invented a method of transferring fingerprints photographically, but he quickly rejected it.
His reverie was interrupted by a phone call from June, who said she had news for him, and he agreed to meet her at the Park Plaza to hear all about it.
***
“Well,” June said, when they had been furnished with whisky sours, “I got in to see Wes with very little trouble. I found a nice young intern who took me straight up. I expected to find Wes in a padded cell with barred windows, but lo and behold, there he was in the TV lounge, chatting with fellow patients, and apparently perfectly rational. I upset the applecart, I’m afraid. Tremendous emotional outbursts, tears, clingings to sisters’ necks and all that. Why had I deserted him, why hadn’t I come before? I told him I’d been warned off. No family. So he burst into a tirade about conspiracies.
“We went to his room, and I told him Mr. Ogilvy was going to withdraw. He sneered horribly and talked about rats leaving the sinking ship. I think he enjoys the romantic feeling of being alone against a hostile world. I told him to shaddap and let me talk. I said Mr. Ogilvy was being a real prince about the whole thing. I told him that, whatever Gran or Uncle Ralph might say, he had a right to appoint his own lawyer, and I recommended you. I said you had made certain helpful discoveries, but did not specify. He said, ‘Is he on the trail of the gang? Tell him to watch himself! They got Uncle Edgar.’
“I asked him if he had any slightest inkling of a clue why anyone should want to ruin him, and he came out with a brilliant theory. He said, yes, he’d worked it all out. ‘This is an international gang, see?’ he said. ‘And when they’re going to pull some job in the big time, like New York or Chi, they try it out here, like Moss Hart and Lerner and all that mob tried out Camelot in Toronto before they opened on Broadway.’
“I thanked him prettily for this brain wave and we talked of other things. He wanted to know all about you. Was I sure you weren’t in the gang? How old, how tall? I told him older than Bruce Kidd and shorter than Goose Tatum. I told him your nickname, and he was charmed. He started referring to you as ‘the old Gargoyle.’ Gee, the old Gargoyle would soon have him off the hook and round up those guys. So I left him pedaling madly on his manic cycle and rushed to tell you. Oh, by the way. He wrote a note appointing you as his counsel, and borrowed a dollar from me, which he gave me back to hand to you as a retainer. He said to say he would pay you plenty more, but pullenty more, as soon as you spring him on this rap. Now where do we go?”
“There are two roads open,” Sidney said. “I have to get a tape machine and listen to a depressing tape, and I want to do some exploring in Muskoka. My own car is a heap…”
“Oh, I have a Citroën,” she said. “It goes like a bomb. Do you want it? But what do you want to explore in Muskoka?”
“I want to look for an old summer cottage. A big old frame one that’s been winterized. It is a hideout, I believe, of Howard Gadwell’s. I’ve been thinking about it, and the more I think, the more I want to find it. And it’s got to be this weekend or not at all. Also, I may have to do a spot of breaking and entering. And tomorrow I will have to interview my new client and see if he can give me any help.”
“So when is your Muskoka safari?” she asked.
“By golly, I’d like to go tonight,” he said. “Night would be the best time to locate the place. Look, this is dynamite, so quiet, eh? Gadwell used to go to this joint every weekend. Probably still does. It would be easier to locate the cottage at night if there were lights showing. And once I’ve found the place, I can go back up there and explor
e at some time when I know that Mr. Gadwell isn’t at home.”
“Just what do you mean, you want to look for a cottage? Muskoka is lousy with cottages.”
“Well, this one is special. Big, high ceilings. Probably off by itself. Very private.”
“On an island, then,” she said. “Sounds like Little Pittsburgh to me.”
“Little Pittsburgh? Who he?” Sidney asked.
“Sort of a section of Muskoka Lake,” she said. “Before all the millionaires moved to Texas, they used to grow them in Pittsburgh. Steel, coal, that sort of thing. Well, some of these millionaires discovered Muskoka. They bought islands, back around the turn of the century. They built huge, gingerbread frame cottages and boathouses, and they really lived it up. There used to be Mellons up there…”
“Watermelons?” Sidney said.
“No, idiot. Two-L Mellons, like Carnegies and so on. Most of them have sold out or died out, but the cottages are still there. Some have been turned into lodges, I believe. But, Sidney, you could flounder around for days. What have you to go on?”
“Dead reckoning,” he said. “I have a fairly exact distance from a point in Toronto, up 400 and 11. The turnoff appears to be Bracebridge. Couple that with the description of the cottage, and where does that put you?”
“Along the Port Carling road, almost for sure,” she said. “And it sounds very much like Little Pittsburgh. But if it’s on an island, you’ve had it. The place is crawling with islands.”
“Suppose a person were going to an island up there in winter,” Sidney said. “Would he drive over the ice to it?”
“I imagine so,” she said. “The ice is good and thick at least till April.”
“All right,” he said. “Now suppose I set out on that route and drove the exact number of miles I figured on. That should bring me to a landing stage. Right? Supposing it’s an island we’re looking for.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” she said. “Maybe the big wharf at Beaumaris or something like that.”
The Weird World of Wes Beattie Page 10
